She's a Phantom
by neon rose
Summary: After Sam's tragic and mysterious death Danny has to raise their daughter alone but keeping his ghost identity secret from her becomes harder and harder when she starts to investigate Danny Phantom for a school project and begins to peice things together.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Obviously I don't own Danny Phantom, read and enjoy. For those reading for the first time, this story has a soundtrack, you don't NEED to listen to it to understand the story but it's nice to, all the songs can be found on the internet I'm sure, try reading each chapter with the specific soundtrack song playing, this chapter's track is Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, there are a few live videos of him performing it on youtube.

Danny Phantom laid back on his big double bed in the dark. It had been a lovely wedding, a big one too, Sam had inherited her grandfather's knack of inventing things, she was after all the 'toothpick-cellophane-wrapping-machine-heiress' and Sam's own inventions had made them both very wealthy. He sat up and took off his dark fleecy jacket and laid it on the chair by the bed, it had been a long night.

It wasn't long after they had been married that they had discovered that Sam was pregnant, he remembered the day that they had rushed Sam to the hospital when the pains started. He hadn't woken up straight away and Sam had to punch him in the small of the back before he woke up and called an ambulance for her.

When they were eventually left alone in a room in the hospital waiting for a midwife Sam had turned to him and said it.

"What if it turns out like… like…" She had began nervously.

"Like me you mean?" Danny said understandingly, Sam looked a little embarrassed but nodded.

"Look, I'm only half ghost right? So it'd only be one quarter. And we don't even know if it's genetic. So don't worry." Danny said soothingly to her yet now feeling worried himself.

When she was born, it was a girl in the end, they had both looked at her nervously. She had a little tuft of jet black hair but otherwise she looked normal. Danny and Sam breathed a sigh of relief. Their daughter gurgled and opened her eyes for the first time, Danny and Sam gasped, they were green, a ghostly and slightly glowing green.

"Th-that doesn't necessarily mean that…" Danny began.

"Danny," Sam said touching him on his arm gently, "It doesn't matter, she's healthy. We'll cross this ghost bridge when we come to it. If we come to it."

Danny smiled, they had named their daughter Alex, they both admitted that any child of theirs, especially of Sam's was unlikely to be a girly-girl. Jazz, now a child psychologist, had attempted to lecture them on the affects of giving a child a gender-neutral name, that was until Sam pointedly said that it had never done her any harm. Ah, the look on Jazz's face had been hilarious.

Alex had never exhibited any real signs to Danny's mind of having any kind of special ghost powers, short of being afraid of monsters under the bed that only she could see and bizarrely enough, the tooth fairy, she was a perfectly normal child.

Cruelly enough today of all days had been Alex's birthday. He had gotten the call about… well, about twenty hours ago now. He's been called to the hospital saying that Alex was in the intensive care ward and his wife... his Sam… was dead. He'd had to identify her body, what was left of it that was, there hadn't been much of her left, but enough to tell it was her. The doctors said it was either a horrible car crash or a wild animal attack, possibly even both. They couldn't say because the only witness was his daughter, just turning six that day, and she wasn't in such a good way herself.

Physically there wasn't a scratch on her, but mentally… well the nurses told him that she would scream the place down if anyone entered the room that she was in, the nurses couldn't even get near her.

He cried when he entered the room. That morning Alex has opened just one birthday present, a white shirt with little glittery patterns on it chosen by Sam, Alex had adored it, she was leaving the rest of her presents until her part that afternoon. Sam and Alex had gone out in the car to pick up her birthday cake whilst Danny had stayed home to put up the decorations to surprise Alex and her party guests. He had known something was wrong when they took so long in getting back and there was no phone call to explain their lateness.

And now Alex sat in the middle of the room curled over and shaking, her new white top drenched in blood, Sam's blood.

"Alex! Alex are you hurt?" He asked desperately running up to her, Alex cried more but shook here head as a no.

"What happened baby? What… what…" he trailed off, Alex looked up to him with eyes filled with tears and sobbed out an answer.

"Monsters!" Alex cried and crawled into his arms.

When Jazz, the resident child psychologist at the hospital gave Alex crayons and asked her to draw what happened to her mother… Well, Danny pulled the picture out of his pocket and looked at it again in the half light of the bedroom. It was a picture of monsters all right. Big green and purple things with big teeth attacking Sam, one of them had here arm in its mouth and it wasn't attached to Sam. The monsters were glowing, Danny could tell because they were deliberately surrounded in white when the rest of the picture was coloured black. Sam was in the middle of it, shielding Alex with her body who was drawn curled up behind her in the only white bit in the picture.

Jazz had explained to him that often children couldn't comprehend acts of violence done to people by other people so they created monsters to make it go away and that it was possible that Alex would never remember the event properly. Danny didn't think that that was necessarily a bad thing.

But how on earth would he cope without Sam? How could he raise Alex on his own? How could Alex herself cope without a mother?

"Daddy?" a small voice asked from the door. Danny sat up and looked over, Alex was standing in the open doorframe in her little blue nightie and her little black 'goth' bunny that Sam had gotten custom made for Alex as a baby.

"Yes sweetie?" Danny asked.

"Can I stay in here with you tonight? I'm afraid the monsters will come and get me too." Alex said quietly.

"Don't worry Alex, I won't let any bad monsters get you." Danny said picking Alex up and laying her down on his bed where Sam would normally have been sleeping. Alex rolled over to look at him, her eyes glowed softly in the dark, Danny blinked and let his eyes slip into the same green that they did when he was in ghost mode, just like Alex's.

"Why did the monsters attack mummy dad?" She asked him, Danny bit his lip.

"I don't know sweetie." He replied after a moment.

"Mummy's not coming back is she?" Alex asked in the same knowingly perceptive way that Sam always did. Had.

"No baby, she's gone a long way away. But she's very happy there and it's very peaceful for her." Danny replied a little a little guiltily, neither of them had ever been really been religious but how else did you explain to a six year old that their dead mother wasn't in any pain anymore?

"Well," said Alex after a while, "I hope if I have to go there I don't have to get there the same way mummy did."

That one had kept Danny awake at night for years.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: holy… O.o I just put the first chapter up and within two hours I've had 3 reviews! Thank you to Allie Phantom, dessyweird51 and at-a-glance for reviewing! Edit: Also thanks to Misstress of Darkness, PotterPhan21, Fantomgirl 1 on 1, Mysterious-Phantom, katiesparks and shadowspinner1! This chapter's soundtrack song is "The Universe & U" by KT Tunstall.

When Sam was alive she had made Danny and the rest of his family, most of whom had known for a while, not to mention about Danny being half-ghost to Alex at all. Sam hadn't wanted any latent ghost powers Alex had to be encouraged.

"Because," she had said, "I don't want our daughter in that kind of danger if she doesn't have to be." Danny hadn't really agreed but, as was often easier with the fiery-natured Sam, agreeing was easier.

Danny had spend days trying to remember every piece of guidance and rules that Sam had ever told him about Alex, after all, he would need to manage on his own now. But today was the day of the funeral and he needed to be composed and together, for everyone's sake, for Sam's sake and for Alex's sake.

As Danny walked up to the podium with Alex balanced on one hip and held firmly to his side he wondered how his life had came to be like this. Tucker, one of their oldest friends hadn't been around for ages, not since the incident where he proposed to Sam just after Danny had. Sam had rejected him of course, as kindly as possible though. But that had driven Tucker to try and 're-create' Danny's accident and presumably make himself equal or superior to Danny and so win Sam from him. The 're-creation' didn't go so well, for all his technological knowledge Tucker's machine had exploded, loosing him his right eye and what precious little sanity he had left at that point. He managed to become half-ghost though.

When he came round in hospital weeks later Sam and Danny had been waiting for him and preying to any god they could remember the name of for him to get better. When he did come round he proposed again to Sam, who again rejected him, he had then run off and swore revenge on Danny. They hadn't seen him since.

Until now that was, just as Danny was about to speak he saw Tucker walk into the room and sit down. Danny decided for Sam's sake to ignore this intrusion and began his speech with the slideshow of Sam going on behind him.

"Sam was a special person to many people, a friend, a daughter, a helper, a wife and a mother. Sam always knew what was right and stood up for it, she was never afraid to make her voice heard, a trait I can only hope our daughter Alex has inherited."

A ripple of humorless polite laughter ran through the room at this.

"She changed the lives of all those who met her, the sheer number of people in this room is testament to that." Danny paused before going on.

"Once a rebellious teenager, but then a beautiful, intelligent and rebellious adult." More polite laughter.

"Sam may have gone but she left us with a new life, she left us Alex. And as she grows up in this world without the Sam that we knew and that we loved, we must all keep her memory alive and be grateful for the things that we still have." Danny said hugging Alex closer to him; there were a few sniffles around the room at this.

Danny looked at his daughter who was fixedly staring at a point between the stage and the seats, her eyes glowed.

"Would you like to say something for your mum Alex?" Danny asked, there was a pause before Alex nodded. Danny put her in front of the microphone and stepped back, she was fixedly staring at the same point.

"I know you all miss my mum, but, you shouldn't, she's right here now. She's crying because she's happy and..." Alex paused, her eyes looking off to her side; she turned her head and whispered to thin air before turning back to the microphone.

"She's happy because everyone she loves is here and she couldn't wish for a more beautiful way to say goodbye." Alex said before returning to here seat. Danny and the rest of the audience blinked in a stunned manner before starting to clap uncertainly.

Later Alex walked up to Jazz and tugged on her skirt. Jazz crouched down to eye level like all patronizing people dealing with children do.

"Aunty Jazz, Mum wanted me to tell you something." Alex said.

"Oh?" Jazz asked patiently in her psychiatrist mode.

"She says first of all to stop shrinking me." Alex began.

"Your mother used to say that to me all the time." Jazz smiled.

"She's saying it to you now." Alex said insistently, Jazz's face became worried. "She says that money she owed you for those classes are on a green cheque in the post, it should have arrived by now." Alex repeated.

"I... I got a cheque from Sam this morning, it... it was green." Jazz murmured.

"Ok, that's alright then, I've got to go tell other people things for mum now." Alex said happily before turning to walk off. Jazz caught Alex's arm.

"Can you see your mother sweetie?" Jazz asked seriously.

"Yes, and she says not to worry, I'm only going to talk to people who know about Dad. Whatever that means." Alex shrugged. Jazz blinked, Alex couldn't possibly know about Danny being half ghost, no-one had told her. On Sam's orders no less, yes she still knew that there was something about her father that a select group of people knew but she didn't. There was only one explanation.

"Maybe you'd better not tell them anyway, it might upset some people. After all, how important could it be?" Jazz smiled concealing the terror that lay beneath.

"Ok... I suppose so... I guess great-uncle Allan can wait a week to see mum can't he?" Alex said before walking off leaving Jazz looking at her uncle Allan in terror.

Alex was walking through the crowds of people at the wake on the way to her father when she was stopped by a hand on her shoulder.

"Who are you?" She asked bluntly looking up at the man in front of her. He was tall, dark-skinned and his right eye was completely white.

"My my," he said gently as he knelt down to look at her.

"You do look so much like your mother, your face, your hair, so much like her..." The man said wistfully as his hand tightly held Alex's jaw and turned her face this way and that. Suddenly his face hardened,

"But not your eyes, they are your fathers." He said almost spitting the word.

"To look so much like your mother yet to be a corruption of her beauty is such a crime, the world would be a much better place if you removed..." he said menacingly. At that moment Danny rushed over and swept Alex up in his arms protectively before turning to glare at the man.

"You're not welcome here Tucker, stay the hell away from my daughter." Danny growled at him.

"I have every right to be here." Tucker responded coldly, still fixing Alex with a penetrating stare.

"No you don't, I would have let you stay for old time's sake, but here you are terrorizing my daughter, Sam's daughter!" Danny hissed.

"Stop it both of you." Alex said in a voice not her own. Danny and Tucker both looked at Alex, her eyes were purple like Sam's...

"I don't want you here Tucker, go home." Alex said in the same voice.

"SAM!" Tucker screamed grabbing Alex from the stunned Danny and shaking her, "Speak to me Sam!" he screamed, but Alex's eyes were returning to normal as Danny snatched her back.

Tucker was about to grab Alex from Danny again when he heard the cracking of knuckles behind him, the towering figure of Jack Fenton loomed over him looking incredibly angry.

"Eep." Tucker stated.

"Indeed." Jack agreed before advancing on him.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: thanks SO much to the following reviewers; it really makes my day reading your reviews! PotterPhan21, Fantomgirl 1 on 1, jessicajason, dessyweird51, Lucky Phantom, RemembertheLegacy, LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts and Allie Phantom. You all rock! The track for this chapter is "Little thoughts" by Bloc Party.

Danny and his father walked in through the front door after a hard day's work ghost hunting.

"Beer?" Danny asked his father as he headed over to the fridge.

"Sure. Ah, I tell ya, there's nothing like a father sharing a beer with his son after a hard day's work in the family business." Jack Fenton said happily.

"Yeah, the family ghost hunting business. What worries me more is that we GET business." Danny laughed.

"Uh, son, not to pry, but why is there glue in the fridge?" Jack asked pointing.

"The better questions are, one: where's the squeezy mayonnaise," Danny began as he pulled the glue out of the fridge and looked at it. "And two, where are my daughter and her dumb friends?" Danny said walking into the living room.

His living room was dominated now by stacks of old newspapers, printers, scissors, a giant heap of scrunched up paper and a huge three-sided triangular display.

"Which genius is trying to use mayonnaise instead of glue?" Danny asked holding up the bottle.

"Well... that explains a lot." A skinny brunette boy said popping up from behind the sofa.

"Artists." Danny sighed shaking his head in dismay as the boy went back to sticking things to other things with glue this time.

"Dad, you remember Josh right?" Danny asked pointing to the skinny teenager.

"Hey Mr Fenton…'s… dad…" Josh said shyly pushing his thin glasses up his nose.

"Uh, does that mean I shouldn't have eaten that sandwich?" A blonde boy asked skidding into view on a computer chair.

"See, this is why I buy non-toxic stuff." Danny sighed.

"And yet, I'm not comforted." The boy said standing up at a towering six foot tall.

"And this towering monster that's determined to eat me out of house and home is Aaron." Danny introduced him.

"God, last time I saw you, you were four foot tall!" Jack said shocked.

"What can I say? I had a growth spurt." Aaron said sheepishly.

"Or five." Josh said slightly bitterly.

"Where's Alex?" Danny asked. Aaron and Josh both pointed to the huge pile of scrunched up paper and a white-board full of crossings-out.

"I wouldn't go near her though, she's in one of those science moods." Aaron warned.

"She can't figure out how it's possible." Josh explained.

"That's because it's not! There is just NO way that it's scientifically possible!" Alex screamed kicking the pile of paper across the room. Danny grinned, Alex had such a temper on her sometimes, just like her mother, unfortunately though she had gotten the 'mad inventor' gene from her grandfather.

"What isn't possible?" Danny asked cautiously.

"This whole ghost kid thing, there is just NO way he can be half ghosts half human!" Alex snapped shoving a picture of Danny at Alex's age in ghost form in his face, Danny gulped.

"It's just can't be done!" Alex stomped away angrily.

"What if like… he was a ghost brought back to life but stopped half way? That would be half ghost half human right?" Josh suggested.

"No, that would be a zombie." Alex corrected rolling her eyes.

"Or a ghoul." Her grandfather chipped in, Danny shot him a look, he didn't want this subject encouraged.

"Or a ghoul." Alex conceded. "The only MARGINALLY possible way would be to take a live human and blast him with raw ectoplasmic flow until ectoplasm literally bound itself to his DNA making him part ghost but also part human." Alex complained.

"That… sounds… plausible?" Aaron ventured.

"That's the thing, it's not." Alex frowned walking over to the whiteboard and wiping it clean.

"See, one ghost will leave smatterings of ectoplasm whenever it uses a lot of energy. Like poltergeists for example. But that's sort of, dead energy, if you'll excuse the pun, it's the waste product of the activity. To leave live ectoplasm on a human it would have to be directed at a human." Alex said drawing as she spoke.

"So, mystery solved, a ghost attacks some guy and he becomes half ghost." Aaron shrugged.

"Yeah, and if you light a match the world will catch fire." Alex said sarcastically. "One ghost just wouldn't cut it, you'd need like… the entire afterlife moving through one person which…" Alex went silent for a moment and her eyes widened and her mouth began moving to form silent words.

"If X is the resilience of human DNA… and Y being the force needed to alter it and if you move X number of ghosts through test subject A then… but you'd need somewhere for the ghosts to go TO… some kind of… portal… between this world and the ghost world. If… just if you happened to be in this portal a precisely the point that it opened and the ghosts flowed through then… it just… might… work." Alex murmured stepping back from the board that displayed a perfect blueprint of the ghost portal that had turned Danny into who he was today. Danny's mouth hung open, gods Alex was frighteningly bright sometimes.

"But… that's so dangerous though, too far one way or the other and you'd be screwed, but the science IS sound. But you'd have to have the on switch inside of it, who would be THAT stupid to put one there?" Alex frowned.

"And who would be so ghost obsessed to build a machine like that?" Josh asked. Danny and Jack looked at each other.

"Eh, who cares? We just need to get this project finished by morning." Aaron shrugged.

"Mmm, you're right." Alex shrugged copying down her notes on paper. Danny and Jack breathed a sigh of relief.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I've decided to include a soundtrack to this story if anyone is interested, if you want look up the songs online and play them when reading the specific chapters, I will go back and edit previous chapters to include their songs. This particular one is "In the morning" by Razorlight. You tube has it if you'd like it.

Also thanks to all my wonderful reviewers:

Misstress of Darkness: Yay for having me on your alert list! Thankyou!

PotterPhan21: Yes, he's one of the people that does know, after all they hunt ghosts together now.

Dragon-Fire-Fairy: heh, thankyou

AirGirl Phantom: Yep, they're all 14

Lucky Phantom: I will try to continue to rock. ;;

Jessicajason: Yes Jack does know. And with Alex being able to see Sam when she was young, well... traumatic events bring out surprising things in children, but as a child Alex wouldn't have been around too many ghosts (if you were a ghost would YOU go near the Fentons?) so it faded into disuse. Doesn't mean it won't come back though! -

The next day Alex, Josh and Aaron were setting up their joint project in the main hall when the school jocks walked over.

"Yo Baxter! Whaussup?" One shouted obnoxiously. Aaron turned around and grinned at them, Josh and Alex rolled their eyes and went back to putting the finishing touches to their project.

"Hey guys!" Aaron grinned back smacking on of the guys playfully on the shoulder.

"So, party tonight? My house?" The lead jock asked.

"Dunno, I'll let you know at the end of the day, I gotta check my busy social calendar!" Aaron said sarcastically.

"Heh, that's cool." The lead jock nodded before leading his buddies off.

"I don't know why you hang out with those losers." Josh said bitterly. Aaron looked irritated, Josh was always going on about this.

"Funny, they say the same thing to me." Aaron shot back.

"That's because they're stupid jocks!" Josh hissed.

"What would you know; you're too close minded to give them a chance!" Aaron growled.

"I'm not close minded, I'm just a realist!" Josh retorted.

"You two! Cut it out!" We're all in this project together remember!" Alex snapped at them both, Josh and Aaron fell silent but continued to glare at each other.

"Now, is everything working?" Alex asked patiently, both boys nodded.

"Let's hope so." A voice from above them said darkly.

"AH, principle Lancer." (A/N: yep! He's principal now! ) Aaron said smoothly with a smile that was in fact forced.

"Vinci, Baxter, **Fenton**." Principal Lancer said this last name with some venom. "I hope this new project of yours isn't TOO terrible."

"It's a gem sir honest." Josh grinned.

"Lets see it then." Principal Lancer said slyly.

"If we could have the lights off?" Josh asked the now packed hall, the lights were obligingly turned down. Josh's part of the project came to life, a rotating lamp projected a masterfully made series of images of what was, unbeknownst to them, Alex's father.

Aaron stepped forward first and began to speak. "The ghost kid, sometimes known as Danny Phantom is an important part of our cultural heritage. In 2005 when he made his first appearance he was a local sensation in the newspapers, both national and local. He drew people from all around the country to our town. He even appeared many times in this very school. Some people theorize that he may have been a student here at some point judging on his age and the number of appearances here. Whether a fraud or a phantom it is undeniable that he changed Amity Park forever." Aaron stepped back and people clapped. Alex stepped forward and a board behind her lit up, Alex nervously began to speak.

"Even though ghosts aren't an accepted fact in **mainstream** science." Alex began bitterly saying the word mainstream. "The idea of a being that could be half ghost and half human is intriguing and is theoretically possible."

"She's gonna get laughed off the stage again isn't she?" Aaron whispered to Josh over Alex's speech.

"I dunno, Lancer might drag her off first, look how pissed he looks." Josh pointed to Principal Lancer who was already starting to fume.

"-for those who don't know, ectoplasm is the energy that ghost use, the slime found at haunting sites-" Alex displayed a slide behind her showing a slime covered room. "is ectoplasmic residue, that is used ectoplasm-"

"Oh man… they're not liking this at all…" Josh sighed looking at the sarcastic faces in the audience.

"Even with prolonged exposure to ectoplasm you still wouldn't become half-ghost, after all I've been around it my whole life and I'm normal." Alex continued, a laugh went up from the audience and someone shouted "NOT!" Josh and Aaron winced as Alex faltered for a moment.

"So, uh, what you'd need would be raw ectoplasm, and this would be possible by exposing yourself to it by opening a portal from this world to the next based on certain theories of space and time." Alex finished uncertainly.

There was a pause before the whole room bust into laughter. Alex flushed red with anger.

"STOP! STOP!" She shouted waving her arms angrily. "I KNOW you'd all laugh so I built one!" Alex shouted, the audience quieted down, this could be interesting.

"She BUILT one!" Aaron hissed.

"Oh gods…" Josh moaned.

Alex dragged a backpack sized machine onto the stage and put it onto the table, the hall was silent in anticipation. Alex pressed a few buttons on it and… nothing happened. The audience began to mutter and Alex looked up angrily.

"Oh calm down, it's not plugged in yet!" Alex shouted. She followed the power cable along and plugged it into a power lead dramatically. A lot of nothing happened. A few sniggers went up from the audience, Alex looked worried before running over to the machine and reaching into it and fiddling with a few switches, suddenly a huge beam of green light erupted from it sending Alex flying backwards off of the stage and blasting a meter wide hole in the wall dangerously close to Principal Lancer.

Alex sat bolt upright, her head still spinning slightly, snow-white hair fluttered down in front of her eyes. She stood up slowly and slightly wobbly and dusted herself off, it was at this moment that Principal Lancer regained his composure.

"FENTON!" He yelled. Alex spun around and saw the great big hole in the wall. She ran over excitedly and ran a fingertip through the glowing green goo on the edges of the hole. She jabbed it at Principal Lancer's face.

"HAH! Ectoplasm! What does your conventional science have to say about that!" Alex demanded triumphantly, her new white fringe getting into her eyes.

"It says that you blew a hole in my wall and melted part of it." Principal Lancer snapped.

"But why would it be glowing and green?" Alex retorted.

"Hell, it's probably radioactive now! And Ms. Fenton, you're suspended! For a week!" He continued.

"But!" Alex interrupted.

"TWO weeks! Don't make me make it a month Fenton!" Principal lancer threatened. Alex fell into a sullen silence as the whole school around her laughed and jeered and mocked her. A tear slid silently down her face as the laughter washed over her and she slowly left the room.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The soundtrack to this chapter is "Put up a Fight" by My Awesome Compilation, again youtube has it. Once again, thank you to all reviewers, particularly Mystitat, I love constructive criticism! Also to: ShadowPrincess-Shekailaia, at-a-glance, AirGirl Phantom, LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts, Andrew Laplante, Dragon-Fire-Fairy, Allie Phantom, Teela32, BlankTH, Fantomgirl 1 on 1 and aryasaphira. Wow. O.o

I feel I ought to answer a particular question asked by Mystitat before I move onto this chapter. Yes, Alex did have some ghost powers as a child, seeing Sam for example. However doing things like seeing people at their funerals tends to creep people out, i.e. Jazz, plus Jazz's telling her not to do it would have likely discouraged use of said powers. Secondly, Danny is only half ghost and Sam wasn't at all, making Alex genetically only a quarter at most which wouldn't leave her much to work with.

Second, yes, Alex WAS zapped by the ghost portal however the actual opening of the portal was only about the same size as her head, hence only the front of her hair getting made white, and as she had green eyes anyway it's not too unusual. And the students did notice, they laughed. A lot, (poor alex.) As for Alex's position on ghosts, she accepts them, she's been around ghost obsessed people her whole life (coughJackcough) but she's equally a woman of science too, she believes in ghosts because she's seen them, but she won't believe in a halfa until she can prove it. Which she more or less has now. I hope this chapter and the following few will clear that up a bit more, I was going to go into more depth on Alex's personal views when she meets a certain other character but you'll have to wait to see that so I figured I should answer you now. -

On to the chapter!

OoOoOoOo

Alex sat on an uncomfortably hard chair outside Principal Lancer's office and stared at the vomit-green walls and tried not to listen to her father pleading her case. Her grandfather walked down the hallways and sat next to her. He'd obviously been working when they had called her father and had probably driven him here.

"What happened to your hair?" Jack asked pointed to Alex's fringe.

"Eh… accident. I think it just bleached it." Alex sighed blowing it out of her eyes.

"It could be worse." Jack pointed out.

"Yeah, I could have gone blind." Alex agreed.

"No! Ghost acne!" Jack exclaimed remembering Vlad.

"Yeah, I- wait what?" Alex said puzzled.

"Uh… nothing!" Jack said quickly, Alex gave him a weird look but decided not to push it.

"So, what's the charge kid?" he asked after a while.

"Suspension." Alex answered dully.

"Suspension isn't that bad." He said comfortingly.

"It's not the suspension that bothers me." Alex snapped.

"What then?" Jack asked surprised.

"They- they laughed at me grandpa, I was talking about ectoplasm and ghost and I even brought in a portal to the ghost zone to prove me right too. And you know what? It worked; the machine worked. Of course, it bleached my hair and blew a hole in the wall narrowly missing principal Lancer, but it WORKED." Alex sighed, Jack looked at her sympathetically, he knew how that felt.

"And, I showed my research, I built up and explained my theory, I was up all night designing and building it, my science was sound, I publicly conducted a successful experiment… and they still laughed." Alex sobbed.

At the moment Danny came out of the Principals office and turned to Alex.

"What the HELL is wrong with you! You blew a HOLE in the wall and nearly VAPORISED your principal! I-" Danny began angrily, tears streamed down Alex's face before she jumped up and ran off crying.

"Danny," Jack started with a sigh.

"No Dad, I don't want one of your lectures." Danny snapped.

"Tough, you're getting it." Danny snapped back.

"Alex is a bright girl, she had an amazing head for science and what happened today wasn't fair. Other kids who are good at sport or art get recognition when they do well but Alex goes up and has the guts to do so in front of everyone and shows her gift and her idea, which both you and I know she's right about, and they laugh at her. They humiliate her for being right." Jack said angrily.

"She KNOWS that no-one accepts it though she still goes up and does it anyway!" Danny said exasperatedly.

"She knows what she's doing is right, even if no one listens. It's the hope if changing things for the better, even if she only ever reaches one person that's worth it. Does that sound like anyone else to you Danny?" Jack asked pointedly.

"Sam." Danny muttered, Jack nodded.

"Heh, that ultra-recyclo-vegitarian thing, I don't think anyone ever listened." Danny smiled wistfully.

"But she still did it." Jack pointed out.

"I know. Alex is so like Sam in so many ways but, I do my best with Alex but it's so hard without Sam with me sometimes. I just don't know how to handle her sometimes." Danny sighed sadly.

"I know, but, just let Alex talk to you sometimes, just… ask and trust me she'll talk." Jack said honestly.

"I guess. When did you become so full of sage wisdom anyway?" Danny asked.

"Ah, one of the many joys of being a grandparent, it's a lot easier to see what's going on when they're not your kids." Jack grinned.

Danny arrived back home and set the bag full of food on the dining room table and headed upstairs. He pushed open the door to Alex's bedroom, she was lying face down on her bed with her face buried in her pillow.

"Hey Alex." Danny said softly as he sat down next to her.

"Go away." Came the muffled reply through the pillow.

"I'm sorry for what I said Alex, I know you didn't mean to do anything like blowing a hole in the wall." Danny conceded.

"You don't understand." Alex snapped rolling onto her side with her back facing Danny.

"Then tell me." Danny stated remembering his father's advice. Alex sat up and looked slightly surprised but she went on anyway.

"They laughed and humiliated me; AGAIN. And I'm right, my science was right." Alex sniffed.

"Listen, at your age, the world is really narrow to people and they think that normal is safe and best, that anyone who stands out is a freak. But you've got the guts to be different and to say what you know is true regardless of what they say. Your mother would be very proud of you, she always fought for what she believed in too." Danny smiled.

"And what about you then?" Alex asked.

"I wanted to be popular and normal but was resigned to be a nerd forever. Your mother was of stronger moral fibre than me I'm afraid. C'mon, I have brought you the burritos of apology, they're downstairs." Danny grinned.

"Do they some with the Nachos of forgiveness?" Alex asked following her father downstairs.

"Oh yes, but I have to warn you, they were out of humble pie." Danny said jokingly.

"That's okay." Alex laughed happily.

Alex mumbled in her sleep before rolling over, she frowned and blearily opened her eyes, it was at this point that she came face to face with a pair of glowing purple eyes and the most horrible pair of glittery glasses in the world.

"Hello dear!" The woman chimed. Alex screamed and jumped off of her bed fumbling on her night stand for her ghost gun, she fired, the shots went through the woman, who was on inspection very plump and glittery but with a very pissed off expression on her face.

"ARGH! TOOTH FAIRY!" Alex screamed firing more. "Why is this thing not working!" Alex screamed some more glaring at her gun.

"They don't call me the tooth FAIRY for no reason sweetie." The woman sighed.

"Ah. Not a ghost. Well that was painfully obvious. What the HELL do you want? I thought you'd done terrorising me years ago." Alex said still trembling a little and backed up against the wall.

"Ah yes, no one screamed quite like you did. Good times." The woman smiled.

"For you, you psycho. Jazz told me you were a figment of my imagination." Alex frowned.

"Well don't you think you're a bit old to be seeing me if I was?" The tooth fairy pointed out.

"So why the hell are you here? I don't have any more teeth to lose." Alex snapped.

"That could be arranged you know." The tooth fairy grinned maliciously, Alex closed her mouth tightly, she remembered what this woman was like with teeth.

"Ah, but no, it's not business this time. Word was that you'd got your sight back, so I just couldn't resist popping in to hear that delightful scream one more time." The tooth fairy sighed wistfully.

"Well, you came, I screamed, goodbye." Alex glared.

"Fine. Maybe I'll tell the monsters that there's a position under your bed open again." The tooth fairy shot back.

"Hey! Let's not be hasty now!" Alex said quickly.

"Well then, let's talk." Said the tooth fairy patting the spot on the bed beside her, Alex obediently sat down, the tooth fairy still smelt like bad perfume.

"I need you to do me a favour." She said with a smile of dazzlingly white teeth.

"What could you possibly need from me?" Alex asked warily.

"Oh nothing yet, you won't be any good to me until tomorrow, and even then you won't have any control for at LEAST a week. So I'll see you then." The tooth fairy nodded considering the matter closed.

"What do you mean tomorrow?" Alex demanded.

"Oh! I have to show you something, something my boyfriend got me!" The tooth fairy giggled holding up a bag.

"A bag of sand!" Alex demanded.

"Sleeping sand!" The tooth fairy giggled flicking it in her eyes, Alex blinked before keeling over backwards and snoring.

"Oh Sandman, I love you so." The tooth fairy smiled happily before flying out the window.

A/N: for anyone who doesn't remember the mention of the tooth fairy, go read chapter one again. -


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thank you very much to the following reviewers, it really does make my day to read all your comments! Just A Thinker, blackgem99, at-a-glance, cariadiorarua, LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts, Misstress of Darkness, PotterPhan21, Mystitat, aryasaphira, Allie Phantom, lizziepercush, Andrew Laplante, DxS Phreak, ShadowPrincess-Shekailaia, Teela32 and Cassie 101. Thanks! The song for this chapter is "Friends" by the 22-20s.

Over the years Josh had become good at speed-sketching, that was, sitting down with an open sketchpad with a stick of charcoal held loosely in his hand and drawing as fast as he could. Alex never really stayed still long enough for him to do anything else, but she made the most interesting poses when she was deep in thought though. He always focused on specific details of whatever pose she was in, the twist of a hand, the softness of flesh, the look in her eyes. His sketchbook was full of drawings of her, most of which she'd been completely unaware of at the time. At the moment Alex was reading propped up on her elbows, Alex was dyslexic and had difficulty concentrating on words for any length of time, this made her fidget more than usual. She shifted again before Josh had barely started his last sketch of her.

"You're making his job really difficult you know." Aaron pointed out not looking up from his own book, Alex sat up in surprise.

"Am I?" She asked innocently getting up and walking towards Josh. He watched her bare legs, they captivated him, she didn't usually wear skirts. She lent over his shoulder and looked at the pictures of herself and smiled.

"How come you always draw me so pretty?" Alex asked smiling. This was the point at which he should be saying something like 'I only draw what I see' or 'because you're beautiful' Josh told himself. Instead he just shrugged and mumbled, Aaron rolled his eyes at him.

Alex sat down again and attempted to continue reading, Josh went back to drawing her. Alex's recent accidental change of hair colour was interesting, it had bleached her normally jet-back hair snow white, only the front of it though. Her hair was about jaw-length and it framed her face nicely. Alex was an effortlessly skinny person, she ate whatever she wanted and still stayed that way, much to Aaron's annoyance with the effort he had to go through in physical exercise for the football team. Physically though Alex wasn't that special, but it was something more than her looks that caught Josh's attention, she had this effortless grace about her, other worldly almost, she had a slightly mystical feel about her as if she had one foot in this world and another in the next; the glowing green eyes helped this impression somewhat.

Danny walked through the living room where the three teenagers sat for about the fourth time in ten minutes, he watched Alex as he went by.

"Why does he keep doing that?" Aaron asked curiously.

"No idea. I think he's afraid I'm gonna blow something up again." Alex shrugged not looking up from running her finger under the words she was trying to read.

"Mmm, and I think we're gonna leave before that happens. I've got football practice and Josh needs to be forced to socialise." Aaron sighed getting up.

"I don't WANT to go." Josh glared.

"That's why I'm forcing you. Cya Alex." Aaron grinned pulling Josh out of the Fenton's house.

"Bye guys." Alex called after them.

Danny walked back through the living room looking at Alex out of the corner of his eye.

"WHAT!" Alex demanded exasperatedly putting her book down.

"What what?" Danny asked innocently.

"What's with the looks?" Alex continued irritated.

"Nothing. Do you feel okay by the way? That explosion not had any… unusual effects?" Danny asked curiously.

"Except from perma-bleaching my hair so I can't dye it back to black? No." she sighed remembering the hours of effort with a can of hair dye that had failed.

"No nausea… unconsciousness… weird hallucinations?" Danny suggested.

"No." Alex glared at him.

"Sure?" Danny pushed.

"YES! Urgh, that's it. I'm going to grandpas." Alex growled leaving the house. Danny heard the door slam and he flopped down on the couch.

"Maybe I'm wrong." Danny sighed to himself, "maybe, maybe she's fine after all."

Not too far away a teenage boy shuffled into a dark room lit only by a few computer monitors. A silhouette blocked the light.

"I… master, you called?" the boy said worriedly.

"Yes. The girl has found out how to make the machine. It's not perfect, but it works. You're going to take it from her, but first you must take her trust." The man said in a low voice with an evil chuckle.

"Yes master."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: The songs for this chapter are, in this order, "As lovers go" by Dashboard confessional and "Changes" By Butterfly Boucher featuring David Bowie, you can find both on the Shrek 2 soundtrack. Thank you to the following reviewers: Cassie 101, Allie Phantom, Mystitat, PotterPhan21, DxS Phreak, cariadiorarua, LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts, Just A Thinker and aryasaphira. Thank you all! This chapter's a little long so you have been warned! ;;

"Hey Grandpa, Grandma said you were down here." Alex said happily as she walked down the stairs to the basement.

"Hey Alex, you probably shouldn't be down here you know, it's dangerous." Jack said reproachfully.

"I suppose you won't be wanting these cookies then?" Alex grinned offering a plate of the hot treats.

"Oh… okay… but don't tell Maddie I let you stay down here." Jack grinned conspiratorially before nabbing a cookie. After handing her grandfather a few things around the lab that he needed; wrench, screwdriver, ectoplasmic balancer, spirit level (bad dum bum tsch), and so on she was free to roam around her Grandfather's lab. This was a rare occurrence as her grandfather was normally very secretive about his lab. Goodness only knows why, it's not like she was going to go stick her finger in power sockets or something, after all what was the worst that could happen?

She mooched further back into the lab and stopped before a big circular object covered by a white sheet, curiosity got the better of her and Alex reached out to pull aside the sheet.

"Alex! Hey Alex!" her Grandfather's voice called, Alex's hand froze, how did he always know when she was about to find something cool?

"Yeah Grandpa?" Alex asked wandering back to him a little annoyed.

"Can you run down to the mechanics and pick up these things for me? I'm all out." Jack asked sighing and offering a scribbled list to her.

"Sure." Alex nodded grabbing her bag and walking up the stairs.

Alex opened the door to the Amity Park Mechanics and Parts store, the comfortingly familiar sound of the bell above the door rose her from studying the list that her grandfather had written in his obscure handwriting.

"Hey Ms. Fenton." The head mechanic Joe smiled as she entered.

"Hello generic mechanic Joe." Alex teased him.

"Hah! Watch it you! What'll it be today then?" Joe laughed leaning on the counter.

"Hm, well, my Grandpa wrote it so this first thing could be copper wire or shanghai elephants. Which do you think?" Alex asked jokingly.

"I'd go with the copper wire myself." He said placing it on the counter.

"Okay, but if grandpa asks where his elephants are I'll tell him who's responsible. Anyway, a box of size two screws, some standard metal plating and one reel of ectoplasmic string." Alex read off the list.

"You know I only stock this stuff for you lot." Joe laughed waving the glowing string at her.

"Well you shouldn't, it's only encouraging bad science." A snooty man with a long pointy nose sneered next to Alex.

"Oh my god, is that a nobel prize committee member over there?" Alex asked surprised and pointed across the room.

"WHAT! Where!" The man jumped before running off in search of his nobel prize.

"Between you and me, at least you lot pay your tab and don't go around acting like _that_." Joe whispered conspiratorially.

"Heh, speaking of which, charge it to Fenton Works account will you?" Alex asked piling her grandfather's stuff into her arms and walking off with a goodbye.

Just as she was walking out the door someone slammed right into her, Alex's stuff dropped to the floor with a lot of loud clatters.

"Oh great." Alex muttered bending down.

"Oh no, please let me." A voice said and a boy bent down and helped her pick up her stuff.

"And who the hell are you?" Alex demanded bluntly as she brushed her hair out of her eyes and glared at him.

"I'm Max, and I'm sorry for making you drop your stuff, can I at least help you pick it up?" He asked hopefully, she looked up at him, waves of dark brown hair hung in his chocolate-coloured eyes, he had glossy coffee coloured skin and Alex had to admit, he **was** pretty cute.

"Sure." She blushed picking up her stuff.

"What's this?" Max asked holding up the glowing blue string.

"I… it's ectoplasmic string." Alex sighed knowing what was coming next.

"Ectoplasm? As in… ghosts?" He asked looking at Alex curiously.

"Yes okay!" Alex snapped snatching it back and starting to walk off, she'd been laughed at enough recently, she didn't need any more.

"Hey wait! I didn't mean to upset you!" He shouted after her.

"You… you're not going to laugh at me?" Alex asked suspiciously.

"No, if it's possible then there's no reason not to try it. After all, if science always stuck to what it knew, we wouldn't know anything." Max said sincerely, Alex face cracked into a broad smile.

"You're not from around here are you?" Alex asked still smiling.

"No, I just got here." He replied a little puzzled at this.

"Well welcome to Amity Park, I'm Alex Fenton." She said re-shuffling her stuff and shaking his hand.

"Where's all that stuff going anyway?" Max asked helping Alex carry her stuff now that she seemed to have forgiven him.

"Fenton Works, my Grandfather's business, him and my dad are kind of the local ghost hunters." Alex said slowly as she watched for any signs of Max about to laugh at her or her family.

"You certainly don't do anything halfway do you?" Max said with a little laugh.

"No, but they wouldn't get any business if- did it just get colder?" Alex asked with a shiver.

"BEWARE! I am the box ghost!" A blue man said appearing out of the floor waving his arms in the air. Max jumped, Alex sighed, even SHE was sick of this particular ghost and unlike her poor father she didn't have to deal with him on a regular basis. She pulled a blue gun out of her pocket that had a strange resemblance to a water pistol and levelled it at the ghost.

"You have three seconds." Alex warned.

"What the hell are you doing?" Max hissed terrified.

"One." Alex said ignoring him.

"Beware?" The box ghost said uncertainly, this wasn't how it was supposed to go was it?

"Two." Alex continued.

"I am the box ghost!" he shouted throwing a box at Alex knocking her and her stuff over and fleeing for his afterlife.

"THREE!" Alex growled shooting after him, there was a yelp of pain in the distance. Alex got up and inspected the box to check it was normal before loading her stuff into it, she casually stuck the gun back into her back pocket before walking off leaving Max standing there with his mouth hanging open.

"Wh- does that happen OFTEN!" He asked shocked as he ran to catch up with her.

"Fairly often, yet everyone thinks we're crazy." Alex sighed, she didn't understand people.

"Well I don't, THAT was crazy, not you!" Max gawped.

"You know, I'm really starting to like you." Alex grinned.

Alex pushed the door to her grandfather's lab open with her foot as she struggled with her newly acquired box full of stuff. "Hey Grandpa I got the things you asked me to get- Grandpa?" Alex called to the empty room.

Alex wandered through the deserted laboratory abandoning the recently haunted box and its contents on one of the few empty work benches. The laboratory was huge now; her father had told her that it had at least quadrupled in size and junk content since he was her age. It was slightly dusty in this section of the lab; Alex guessed it must be used mostly for storage. She continued through the lab, the things around her getting progressively dustier. Alex stopped in front of the same large white sheet covered thing that she had been face to face with before, she paused before pushing a fold of the sheet aside and walking into the space it covered.

"This… this is a ghost portal." Alex murmured looking around, it was larger than the one she had designed, easily big enough for her to stand in and it was slightly different inside but definitely a ghost portal. Why had her grandfather never told her about this? Alex shrugged off her jacket, leaving her in her white sleeveless shirt and jeans and walked further in to investigate. Suddenly her foot caught on a stray bit of metal on the ground tripping her up and making her fall onto the wall. Alex stared at her outstretched hand in horror as it lay on the on button, in the back of the portal a dauntingly familiar green swirl began.

"Oh shi-" Alex whimpered before the bright flash and the force of the blast silenced her.

Words swirled around Alex's memory as she rose back into consciousness.

"_What could you possibly need from me?" _

"_Oh nothing yet, you won't be any good to me until tomorrow…"_

Alex blearily opened her eyes and stared at an arm as it lay on the ground in front of her, it took her a moment before she realized that it was HER arm. This was mainly because it was a deathly pale white and glowing slightly. Alex noticed that patches of the skin (it still didn't feel like it was her skin just yet) were black, they looked like cuts and grazes and bruises, but they were all black, as if someone had painted them on her with ink. Alex's hands flew to her face and she dashed to a nearby mirror and gasped in horror at what she saw.

The skin around her eyes was completely black too as if she'd been punched there, as were the undersides of her cheekbones, her face almost looked like Halloween face paint of a skull! Her hair was long, almost to her knees and the part of her hair that had been bleached white was not jet black and the bits the had been black were now a brilliant white, she was missing a trouser leg at the knee and had somehow lost her shoes.

"Great now I look like a zombie." Alex sighed. She looked at her hands, they were a mess of crisscrossed black lines, she made them into fists and idly knocked them together. Suddenly blue rings slid from her fists and up her arms and eventually covered her entire body. Alex turned to the mirror to see her own normal face looking back at her.

"So that's how Danny Phantom remained undetected…" Alex mused at this new insight.

"Alex! Alex are you down here?" her grandfathers voice called her. Alex quickly checked herself in the mirror, she looked normal apart from her clothes… Even the portal looked normal, not like it had just been accidentally used, maybe she was safe…

"Uh, yeah grandpa I'm back here." Alex replied trying to think of excuses for her ragged appearance.

"What happened to you!" Jack yelped shocked thinking of how much trouble he would be in with Maddie if she found out something had happened to Alex, he didn't even want to think about his son's reaction if Alex was hurt in HIS lab.

"I… uh…" Alex panicked with no excuse coming to mind.

"You look like you've just had an electric shock!" Jack gasped.

"I- yes! That's exactly what happened! But I feel fine now, no need for a hospital or anything." Alex sighed relieved.

"Do you feel okay? Let's get you some new clothes, and ah, don't tell your father about this okay?" Jack asked hopefully.

"Sure Grandpa." Alex smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: I'm SO SORRY that this hasn't been up here lately, my document manager wouldn't let me upload ANYTHING and it took them forever to fix it! Anyway, I'm back!

The song for this chapter is "F.N.T" (or Facinating New Thing) by Semisonic. Thankyou very much to all the reiviewers! Dragon-Fire-Fairy, AirGirl Phantom, cariadiorarua, PotterPhan21, Linkmaste, ShadowPrincess-Shekailaia, Misstress of Darkness, LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts, Bubblegurl77, Andrew Laplante, aryasaphira, DxS Phreak, life sucks then you die 32, Just A Thinker, StrugglingArtist and Cassie 101! Thank you all!

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Where is that book on ghosts? I know I remember it having something on this in here!" Alex fumed chucking books from her bookshelf onto the floor.

"Oh no," Alex groaned, "I used it for my project, it's in my locker." She checked her watch, if she left now she could be there mid-lesson time and she wouldn't run into any teachers, hopefully.

"Then I could get my book back and find out how the hell to get rid of this!" Alex grinned triumphantly, suddenly her fists bushed each other and those pale blue rings appeared and changed her into the black and white skinned monster that she had seen in the mirror before. She felt a change in her body come over her, her body felt less… solid… Alex looked down to see her feet slipping through the floor below her, she yelped scared and fell completely through the floor, landing with a thud on the floor below, she changed back to her usual self and groaned and hobbled off to school muttering angrily.

Alex pushed open the doors to Casper High and peered down the hallway. The coast was clear. She carefully slipped in and crept down the hall ducking under classroom windows until she got to her locker, pulling the key out of her pocket she unlocked it and pulled out the book she needed.

"What's this?" Mr Lancer's voice enquired from behind her. Alex gasped and spun around clutching the book to her chest, Mr Lancer advanced towards her.

"Mr Lancer I-" Alex began quickly but was cut off by Mr Lancer.

"MOBY DICK!" Mr Lancer exclaimed stumbling backwards looking terrified.

"Who- who's there?" He demanded looking around desperately to find whichever teenager was playing this horrible prank on him. Alex frowned and waved a hand in front of Mr Lancer's face, she gasped, there was no hand there just a faint blue line that she could barely see. She… was invisible. Alex whimpered barely noticing Mr Lancer backing away, she needed to figure out how to cure this, and fast! Absentmindedly she turned and slammed her locker shut before leaving and forever traumatizing Mr Lancer as he ran off screaming like a girl.

"Come on…" Alex muttered scrunching her eyes up.

"Become visible damnit." She hissed to herself. Slowly her body faded back into view and only when she was sure of herself did she move back to her home. After all, as much as she loved her family they were very ghost obsessed and she didn't know how well they'd take it. An image of herself tied down to a table with her grandparents about to 'investigate' her popped into her head. She shuddered, not a great idea.

Down the hallway a boy watched with interest, he couldn't wait until he told his master THIS!

Alex managed to make it through her week of suspension without her family finding out about her new powers and she gained a little control over them as well. It was only at school that things started going wrong, stress apparently weakened what little control that she had over her powers and when things got worse she got even more stressed and then things started going even more wrong. It didn't help that someone managed to show up out of the blue.

Alex was putting her books into her locker, shoving them in against the sheer weight of the unorganized packed mass that was in there already, she quickly slammed the door before anything could fall out.

"Hey!" A voice from behind her said and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Argh!" Alex yelped, her arm slipping through the metal door in her locker. She quickly yanked her arm back out and spun around terrified she'd been found out, it was then that she came face to face with those rich chocolate eyes.

"Oh! Max right?" Alex said surprised.

"Right, so this is your school too then?" Max asked looking around happily.

"Yeah. Popular kids and all." Alex muttered as some popular girls walked by and sneered at her.

"I'm sure it's not _that_ bad." Max laughed.

"Believe me, it is, what are you doing here anyway?" Alex asked curiously.

"I just transferred here, I'm new remember?" he smiled at her, Alex was aware of the affect his smile was having on her normally anti-social character.

"Cool." She nodded lacking anything else to say.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could tell me where here is exactly. I'm kinda lost." Max admitted sheepishly and offered Alex his new timetable. She took it off of him gently, her fingers brushing his for a second, her face reddened.

"Oh! You have science next with me, I'll show you where it is!" Alex offered helpfully.

"Alex! I- who the hell are you?" Josh demanded glowering at Max.

"Way to go Mr. Social Skills." Aaron sighed rolling his eyes as he arrived after Josh.

"Josh, this is Max. Max, Josh." Alex introduced.

"Hi!" Max smiled sweetly, Josh glared at him and muttered a 'hi' to him.

"And this is Aaron, he's a Jock slash Nerd hybrid and annoyingly articulate." Alex grinned.

"What she means is I save her butt in English class and she still owes me." Aaron said pointedly.

"Heh, and here I thought you couldn't get that combination." Max smiled.

"Eh, someone has gotta be that odd statistic, might as well be me." Aaron laughed, "Where are you headed by the way?"

"Science with Alex apparently, you?" Max replied.

"Ah. Maths, joy of joys." Aaron smiled, "And speaking of which we gotta go Josh." Aaron said walking off. Josh stayed where he was and glared at Max who looked very uncomfortable at this.

"I SAID we have to go Josh." Aaron repeated dragging Josh off by the scruff of the neck.

"Uhm… science?" Alex asked trying to cover up her friend's weirdness with cheerfulness.

"Sure." Max agreed.

"What'd you do that for!" Josh demanded angrily as he struggled out of Aaron's grasp.

"What'd YOU do that for?" Aaron shot back.

"That guy is EVIL! Can't you tell?" Josh snapped.

"How? He was nothing but polite to you and you were acting like a jerk!" Aaron snapped.

"No! Look at that!" Josh exclaimed pointing at Alex and Max in the distance. Max said something to Alex with a sexy smile on, Alex laughed and blushed.

"Oh NO! Someone is FLIRTING with Alex! Quick! Alert the police! No, alert Batman!" Aaron shouted sarcastically waving his arms in the air in mock panic.

"Evil." Josh stated angrily.

"Big deal, if you ain't gonna tell Alex that you like her then you've got no right to get pissy when someone else does." Aaron pointed out irritated.

"I DON'T like Alex, I just-" Josh began but Aaron cut him off.

"Don't bother, you're not fooling anyone. Seriously, drop it." Aaron sighed.

"I- but- he's evil I tell you!" Josh whimpered following after Aaron.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks to all those who reviewed, I promise there will be no more new main characters, the setup for this story is complete, now we can get down to the fun!

Thanks to all those who reviewed: cariadiorarua, AirGirl Phantom, silverstagbeauty, Just A Thinker, StrugglingArtist, Linkmaste, Girl of the Graveyard, life sucks then you die 32, PotterPhan21, Mystitat, aryasaphira, Sweeteen19. loves ya all!

OoOoOoOoOoOo

Alex shifted on the sofa uneasily, it had been a week since she'd had that encounter with the tooth fairy and she really didn't want her to come back. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, Alex screamed and jumped off of the sofa and spun around in terror, Danny stared at her.

"Are you okay?" He asked her warily

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" Alex replied quickly and nervously.

"You seem to be somewhat… twitchy…" Danny explained worriedly, he walked around to the same side of the sofa as Alex and looked at her sympathetically, this only seemed to make her more nervous.

"Well, I'm not twitchy, nothing's wrong." Alex insisted backing away slightly.

"There's obviously something wrong, why don't you tell me?" Danny continued getting frustrated, why did this work when his dad did it and not him?

"It's NOTHING! Stop going on at me!" Alex snapped back before storming off. Danny flopped down on the sofa with his head in his hands.

"I don't understand her, I would have when I was her age; what's so different about me now? What's so different about her?" Danny moaned depressed. He walked over to the mantelpiece and picked up his favourite picture of him Sam and Alex, it was from their first holiday at the beach, Alex and Sam had buried him when he was asleep and they had woken him up to take the picture; his face was full of surprise at being neck-deep in sand and Alex and Sam were laughing happily and poking him. Danny's face cracked into a smile, but then he felt sad, where had his little girl gone? They'd grown further apart the older Alex got and the less he was able to relate to her, they had their good moments, sure, but… it wasn't how it used to be. He sighed and cringed as Alex's door slammed upstairs, he looked out of the window to see Alex slide down the drainpipe moments later, as if he didn't know that's how she got out when she was grounded. He wouldn't stop her though, she didn't want to be around him, that's why she was leaving, and she'd be back before dark anyway.

At about ten at night Alex did indeed heave herself back into her room through her window, sliding to the floor tired she opened her eyes to…

"GYAH!" Alex yelped at the sight of the tooth fairy sitting impatiently on her bed.

"Oh quiet down, it's about time you got back here." She commented annoyed.

"You, you're back, it wasn't just a horrible dream!" Alex whimpered fearing she was going crazy.

"I would happen to be something very nice to dream about thank you." The tooth fairy said pointedly.

"Whatever, what do you want?" Alex demanded, angry now that she shock had passed.

"You, or to be more precise, your powers." The tooth fairy grinned menacingly, her pearly white teeth glinting in the moonlight.

"Fine. Take them, I don't want them." Alex shrugged.

"Ah, if only it were that simple, but no, come with me." The tooth fairy instructed flying out the window. Alex got up and looked out, what exactly was it she was expected to do, it wasn't like she could follow her; at that point the tooth fairy seemed to notice Alex wasn't by her side and flew back looking slightly depressed.

"You haven't learnt to fly yet have you?" She asked annoyed.

"Uh, no?" Alex frowned disliking the feeling of being treated as "slow".

"Eesh, must I do everything around here?" the tooth fairy sighed grabbing Alex's shoulders and hauling her out of the window; her tiny wings seemed to struggled with Alex's weight.

"Turn ghost then already!" the tooth fairy growled, Alex obliged and pressed her fists together, her skin turned black and white, her hair grew long, and she went back to having what could easily pass for zombie-clothes. She regretted not wearing one of her grandfather's stupid jumpsuits, maybe that would have held out better in the ghost portal.

"My aren't you a beauty queen like that? Anyway, you know the phrase sink or swim?" the tooth fairy asked rolling her eyes.

"Uh…yes…" Alex murmured not liking where this was going.

"I call this, fall or fly." She grinned menacingly as she dropped Alex 50 feet above solid concrete. After much screaming and flailing of arms, Alex managed to pull herself up into a passable impression of flight.

"Well done, let's roll." the tooth fairy nodded ignoring Alex's present heart attack.

After a while flying above roads Alex spoke up, "Again I ask, what do you want with me?" Alex asked just managing to swerve to miss a phone line.

"The whole world runs on a system, yin and yang, living and dead, good and bad and so forth." the tooth fairy began to explain.

"Makes sense, but this involves me how?" Alex asked with a raised black eyebrow, which for some reason hadn't changed colour.

"Shut up, I have a good monologue going here. The system is, however, becoming unbalanced. Certain parts of the system are, let's say, acting up." She went on.

"Why?" Alex questioned.

"What did I say about you and talking?" She glared, Alex held her hands up in surrender and remained silent, the tooth fairy continued. "Because the end is coming. Every few hundred years the system receives a re-shuffle, things that no longer serve a purpose are… moved along so to speak. Now, the factor deciding whether this happens to you or not is whether or not you're believed in. The big parts of the system with lots of belief are in no danger, such as myself, Father Christmas, monsters under the bed and so on. But smaller things, well, they get panicky, and they think that acting up and causing chaos will get them noticed and believed in, thus avoiding the re-shuffle." She finished and looked expectantly at Alex.

"Aaaand this has WHAT to do with me now?" Alex asked again.

"Urgh, I need YOU to stop this. Any part of the system caught acting up needs to be put back in its place by you." the tooth fairy sighed rolling her eyes. Humans could be so dim.

"So what am I? The universe's janitor! Why can't YOU do this?" Alex demanded angrily.

"BECAUSE then **I** would be acting out of place." She retorted stating the obvious.

"Aren't you doing that now? And what'll happen to me when this re-shuffle is over?" Alex shouted angrily.

"Urgh, questions questions, you never shut up. Look, down there." the tooth fairy sighed pointing to a car that had what looked like a small bald angry monkey on it.

"What is that? A ghost?" Alex murmured curiously, all anger forgotten.

"A GHOST? Oh goodness me no. Ghosts are just dead people, nothing to do with your part of the system, so they're not you're concern, I doubt any will go near you anyway. No, that's a jinx." the tooth fairy explained.

"What the heck's a jinx?" Alex asked flying low over the car to get a better look at it.

"When someone wishes ill on a person enough a jinx will appear and cause harm to the person being wished ill on. Basically, they happen and bad things appear." the tooth fairy explained.

"So… isn't it doing what it should be doing then?" Alex asked as the small bald monkey thing chattered at her angrily in between bouts of gnawing at the car's radio antenna.

"No, you wouldn't be able to see him if he was doing what he was supposed to, this one is acting up. So do YOUR job and stop it." She ordered. Alex blinked and turned to the monkey jinx thing.

"Uh… shoo? Bad jinx?" Alex tried.

"That'll strike fear into their hearts. Honestly, why do I even bother, pft, **mortals**." the tooth fairy muttered.

Alex swatted a hand at the creature and a wave of green light flew out smacking it off of the car, it chattered angrily at her as it fell off before vanishing.

"W00t! I did it!" Alex cheered landing shakily on the ground.

"Yay you." the tooth fairy sighed sarcastically.

"I kicked ass!" Alex danced happily.

"Honestly, this is like pulling teeth, speaking of which I have work to do." The tooth fairy sighed as she turned to fly off.

"Hey! Wait! Why should I even do this for you? What do **I** get out of this?" Alex demanded grabbing the tooth fairy's ankle.

"You mean what do you get aside from superpowers? The satisfaction of helping the world tick on as it should and your teeth." She threatened.

"Sounds good." Alex squeaked letting go. The tooth fairy vanished and Alex glanced at her watch, it was gone 11, her dad would be livid if he knew she was out this late!


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks to all those who reviewed as we're now over 107 reviews! That's more than I've ever gotten for any other fic before! dances So a HUGE thanks to: Sweeteen19, Cassie 101, DxS Phreak, Ness Lupin, Blues59, aryasaphira, crazybtsy, silverstagbeauty, cariadiorarua, StrugglingArtist, PotterPhan21, Mystitat.

Alex walked down the hallway of her school with Josh, Aaron and surprisingly, Max; Josh was not happy about this last fact but Aaron was managing to keep him quiet, kind of.

"Why does **he** have to be here? Alex is **our** friend!" Josh hissed to Aaron.

"Will you knock it off? He's nice!" Aaron hissed back. Max looked exceedingly uncomfortable.

"I- listen if your friends don't like having me around then I'll go, I don't wanna cause an upset." Max whispered to Alex.

"No, I… I like having you around; Josh just isn't a people person, I'm sure he'll warm to you eventually." Alex blushed. Suddenly Alex felt the air grow electric and the room seemed, not quite right, as if something was out of place. Alex looked around and at the top of a ladder with a suspiciously placed can of paint was a Jinx, it was chittering and jumping up and down with delight as it edged the can further towards the edge, Alex panicked.

"OH MY GOD! LOOK! MR LANCER!" Alex yelled pointing in the opposite direction, Aaron, Josh and Max jumped and looked at where Alex was pointing, meanwhile Alex waved a streak of green light at the Jinx causing it to yelp and disappear.

"I don't see him." Aaron frowned turning back.

"Heh, my mistake, it must just have been a very out of shape bearded old woman." Alex laughed nervously, Aaron raised an eyebrow at her.

"Changing the subject! I need to house-sit my grandfather's place tonight, you three want to come over? We could bring movies." Alex suggested quickly.

"Sure." The others nodded, apart from Josh who glowered at Max.

Alex sat in science class trying desperately to focus on anything other than Max, like say science for example.

"Alex! Maybe you would care to answer my question?" The teacher snapped at her, he always disliked her theories on ghosts, even more so that she never seemed to be able to be proved LOGICALLY wrong with them, and so he tended to pick on her.

"Uh… nuclear fission?" Alex suggested, aware that she hadn't been listening at all.

"I- you weren't listening at all were you?" The teacher glared at her.

"Uh… not really sir." Alex admitted.

"And yet by fluke you happen to be right. I've got my eye on you Fenton." The teacher growled very annoyed at being shown up when he KNEW she wasn't paying attention.

"So how come your grandfather's house needs looking after then?" Max asked Alex as they all walked down the road to Fenton Works.

"Well, my grandma's out at a science conference and my Dad and Grandpa are out staking out some haunted house and my aunt Jazz is busy at the hospital where she works." Alex explained.

"They can't leave the house alone really, there are quite a few people around who'd either like to get in and steal things or get in and destroy things." Aaron continued for her, Alex nodded gravely.

"And so you're letting him who you just met the other day into this house WHY?" Josh muttered, Aaron elbowed him to shut up.

"Anyway, here we are." Alex said knocking on the door and ignoring Josh's last remark, a hatch slid back and Jack Fenton peered out.

"Password?" he demanded.

"Grandpa! Not this again." Alex moaned.

"Password." He repeated.

"Urgh, ghosts exist, Jack Fenton is awesome." Alex muttered embarrassed.

"I don't know, you didn't sound **enthusiastic** about it..." Jack said slowly.

"For crying out loud, just let her in." Another voice said from behind the door, the door swung open revealing Danny Fenton and a pouting Jack Fenton.

"Ooh, a new face." Danny smiled at Max as he moved to let the four teenagers in.

"Hi, I'm Max; you must be Alex's Dad right?" Max smiled.

"Well I'm certainly not her grandfather, hey Aaron, hey Josh." Danny nodded, the other two teens murmured a hello and left to explore the softness of the sofa and the possible abundance of snacks.

"Can you trust him?" Jack asked suspiciously.

"Yes Grandpa, stop making my friends uncomfortable already!" Alex hissed.

"On that note, we'd better go Dad." Danny sighed herding his father out of the door ignoring his protests, he returned and kissed Alex on the top of the head.

"Daaaad. Embarrassing me." Alex muttered not entirely seriously.

"I know I know, I'll see you in the morning okay?" Danny smiled leaving the house.

Alex pulled popcorn from the microwave and headed back to her friends.

"So, have we decided? Zombies or aliens?" Alex asked jumping over the back of the sofa to land in between Josh and Max and scattering a few peices of popcorn in the process.

"We're thinking aliens mostly." Aaron grinned.

"Cool." Alex nodded pressing the play button.

"_Oh god, that bright light, is… is that… the ALIENS!"_ a voice from the TV set screamed, all four munched popcorn transfixed by the cheesy horror film.

"Can I use your bathroom?" Max whispered to Alex.

"Sure, down the hall on your left." Alex replied quietly. Max got up quietly and walked off down the hall, there happened to be two doors on his left, he stood still for a moment, which had Alex meant? His hand pushed open the first door, about that time Alex tackled him to the ground.

"What the?" Max gasped shocked.

"Not that left." Alex breathed pulling Max up and showing him the charred spot on the ground where he was standing only moments ago.

"What's that?" Max asked stunned.

"That's my grandfather's lab, hence the security." Alex explained, by now the other two had joined them interested in the commotion.

"That thing's dangerous, it's tried to get me when I've just walked past it before." Aaron laughed amused at the terror on Max's face.

"Yeah it is kinda- did you guys hear that?" Alex asked suddenly becoming serious.

"Ha ha." Josh sighed not buying it.

"No seriously, I think something's down there." Alex murmured, swiping her hand over the sensor and walking down the stairs to the lab. All three boys stood for a moment suddenly more than a little nervous at being alone in this house before dashing after Alex. They skidded into the back of her causing her to shush them and walk onwards, her toes barely graced the ground as she snuck along, her fingers sneaked a ghost gun from a nearby workbench and she held it ready. The three boys followed with their mouths open in awe, none of them had seen this room before now and it was huge and full of incredibly cool stuff. A green glow came from a circular object hidden under a giant sheet at the back of the room.

"The ghost portal." Alex muttered creeping towards it, there were only three sets of footprints in this dust down here, one was hers before her accident, one was hers barefoot afterwards and one was her grandfather's.

"No-one's walked down here." Alex whispered to the now very creeped out boys behind her.

"Th-then what is it?" Aaron said more squeakily and shakily than he'd have liked.

"I-" Alex began before a bright light emanated from the ghost portal blowing the sheet off it and towards them, The three boys screamed caught up in the giant sheet scared and confused. A familiar blue ghost shot forth from the portal. Alex smiled and pulled the sheet off of her friends.

"You ladies can come out from under there now, it's just a ghost." Alex laughed.

"I AM THE BOX GH-" it started before staring in fear at Alex.

"RUN! RUN FOR YOUR AFTERLIVES!" He screamed flying off through the ceiling.

"Aww, he remembered me." Alex laughed feeling touched. Suddenly her eye caught on a small metal ring rolling along the floor towards the ghost portal.

"What the?" Alex murmured before a bright flash of light threw them all backwards.

Not entirely sure how much later Alex opened her eyes to a hand shaking her shoulder, she looked up into her father's concerned face, Alex frowned and shook her head and suddenly remembered, she sat bolt upright and stared at the huge empty space where the ghost portal had been moments ago.

"It… it's GONE!" Alex yelped.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: thanks to: DxS Phreak, StrugglingArtist, cariadiorarua, PotterPhan21, AirGirl Phantom, Sweeteen19, life sucks then you die 32, Ness Lupin, Cassie 101, crazybtsy, for reviewing!

"What happened Alex?" Danny asked bringing his daughter and her friends glasses of water, they were all in varying states of consciousness but Alex was the most awake.

"I- I don't know, I went to the lab door because Max accidentally set off the security thinking that it was the bathroom." Alex began feeling a bit foggy.

"That explains the giant charred patch on the floor." Danny laughed gently.

"Yeah, then I heard a noise down in the lab so I went down to check it out you know? We walked all the way to the back and a ghost came out of the ghost portal and flew off then the next thing I knew there was this bright flash and I woke up to see you." Alex sighed, Danny's eye twitched and his smile froze in place.

"Ghost… portal?" Danny said slowly.

"Yeah, Grandpa has one. Had one." Alex corrected herself and rubbed her temples, wincing at the headache.

"Just one moment." Danny said his smile still frozen on, he got up woodenly and grabbed his father by the elbow and hauled him out of the room and closed the door, Maddie followed.

"GHOST PORTAL!" Danny yelled at his father. Jack Fenton kicked at a rug distractedly and said nothing.

"We AGREED. You said you'd DISMANTLED it! So that Alex would be SAFE! We didn't even need it after we were able to make rifts between here and the ghost zone with the guns!" Danny shouted angrily.

"Jack! You didn't KEEP that thing did you?" Maddie gasped.

"I just… it was my greatest achievement. And it was safe, I put a sheet over it, Alex shouldn't have found it." Jack mumbled.

"Oh yes, because of the great concealing powers of a BEDSHEET!" Danny screamed, Jack mumbled some more. Danny paced the room with his hand over his eyes and repeatedly walking through a table.

"So someone stole it, either knocked the kids out or teleported it or something then." Danny said more calmly.

"Vlad?" Maddie suggested.

"Nah, he's got his own." Danny shook his head. "Who would be so desperate to have OUR ghost portal one of the only ones that works, I mean Vlad's the only other person who's been able to build a proper one." Danny continued trying to think.

"Alex built her one." Jack said proudly.

"Yeah, but it didn't work really did it? Plus it was only a little one. The only other person to have ever made another was Tucker, and his sucked." Danny smirked. "But if I didn't even know that we had one still, how would he have known? And why steal it now?" Danny frowned.

"Either we're wrong or we're missing something big." Maddie nodded.

"Dad?" Alex asked sticking her head around the door.

"Alex! You okay?" Danny asked concerned.

"I… I heard shouting, I'm sorry. I know I was meant to look after the house and I messed up, I'm really really sorry." Alex sniffed tears welling up in her eyes.

"Oh no Alex, you're not in trouble don't worry. I'm sorry for leaving you all alone and letting this happen to you." Danny said grasping his daughter in a hug, for once Alex didn't protest but cuddled closer.

"I tried my best." She cried slightly muffled in the fabric of Danny's shirt.

"I know sweetie." Danny said stroking her hair soothingly.

"You'd better get back to your friends, they're probably pretty spooked." Danny smiled encouragingly.

"No point, they've all gone. I doubt if Max will ever speak to me again, and I really liked him too." Alex sniffed wiping her eyes.

"I'm sure he'll still talk to you." Danny tried to sound hopeful.

"Dad, he came over to see movies and eat popcorn, he almost got blasted by a laser and then knocked out in my grandfather's ghost lab." Alex said flatly.

"Well, you've always got Josh and Aaron." Danny reminded her.

"I guess. Can we go home now?" Alex asked hopefully.

"Sure thing, let's get in the car." Danny said leading Alex out of the room and shooting one last evil look at his father.

Alex flew out of her window enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair, she had to admit, even if she was meant to be the janitor of the paranormal universe there were certain perks to the job. Alex did a swift loop-de-loop in the air before her eye caught something on the road below, a car covered completely in glowing jinx's.

"Oh man…" Alex muttered swooping low on the car and waving green light at the creatures. They chattered and shrieked at her angrily, a larger one pointed at her and screeched at the others, three of them nodded and jumped at Alex. She screamed and swerved in the air as she pulled them off her face and out of her hair. She glared at the largest one on the car and clenched a fist, to her surprise a glowing green orb formed around it, she grinned and punched towards the jinx, it screamed and went flying off into a puff of smoke. Several others seemed to re-evaluate their chances and disappeared, Alex grinned triumphantly and flicked a few off of the wing mirrors.

A little laugh attracted Alex's attention to one crawling THROUGH the bonnet with what looked like some very vital wires in its hand, it laughed and disappeared. Suddenly the car below her swerved and screeched in a very unnerving way, Alex glanced up to see a telephone pole racing towards them at unnerving speed, the people in the car screamed as they crashed into it.

Alex squeaked terrified, one of the men in the car had flown through the windscreen and was lying on the tarmac in front of the car and wasn't moving. She flew closer and landed on the floor, she was in no danger of being seen by the other man who was unconscious but still seemed alive, but this man… well he wasn't breathing. A blue light emanated from his chest and a glowing blue version of him sat up out of his body and stood up out of his body.

"_Oh man, my car!" _he shouted annoyed and apparently unaware of his present state. Alex blinked at a glowing white cord tying him to his body, she'd never seen that on a ghost before.

"I don't think you should be dead." Alex muttered.

"_Really? Score!"_ The ghost-man cheered happily and apparently unfazed by his sudden death or Alex's appearance.

"If… if they weren't meant to be attacking your car then you weren't meant to have this accident and you weren't meant to die." Alex breathed in shock, she knew suddenly what she had to do. Alex knelt down and pinched her fingers on the man's nose and breathed into his mouth before pressing repeatedly above his heart.

"_Whoa, I feel kinda strange."_ He said holding his hands to his ghostly chest, suddenly he skidded forward before shooting back into his body, the man coughed and began breathing again steadily. Alex breathed a sigh of relief and sat back.

"**Wow you really saved my bacon there." **A voice from above Alex said in very cold tones, she looked up shakily to see a dark robed figure with a familiar looking scythe in a skeletal hand.

"D-death…" Alex breathed.

"**Yes."** the robed figure replied. Alex stood up nervously.

"I- he wasn't meant to die was he? I didn't screw something up did I?" Alex asked panicked.

"**No no, he's meant to live. Those bloody jinx's, honestly, just because they're in danger of fading out doesn't mean they have to come and mess with my business. It really buggers around with my schedule." **The voice said in dead tones with a hint of annoyance.

"I get the lovely job of cleaning up after them too." Alex sighed relaxing a little.

"**Mmm. You're the new girl aren't you? I'm Death, pleased to meet you." **He said offering a bony hand, Alex shook it cautiously.

"I- yeah. The tooth fairy was showing me around yesterday, she didn't seem so happy about it." Alex frowned.

"**Urgh, she wouldn't be. Pretentious little bitch, I tell you, I sent her a Christmas card every bloody year since humans with teeth walked the earth and what do I get? Nothing."** Death muttered pulling a dog-eared cigarette out of some hidden recess of his robe, Alex giggled.

"**I really do owe you one for that, people dyin' when they shouldn't be is a bit of a bad thing for me. You end up with zombies then, and we all know how that went LAST time." **Death said breathing out a puff of smoke, Alex wondered how this was possible if he had no lungs.

"**Tell you what, I'll give you this. If ya need me, just blow."** Death said rummaging around in his pockets he emptied a few things into Alex's hands.

"A mint imperial, a mouse and a whistle?" Alex asked curiously.

"**Ah, I meant the whistle."** Death said taking the mouse back and tucking it back in his pocket. Alex didn't want to ask about it.

"**You can keep the mint imperial though."** Death nodded taking another drag on his cigarette.

"Thanks!" Alex laughed.

"**Oops, I gotta go. There's a fireworks show in Ohio that's about to go horribly wrong. Busy busy you know." ** Death sighed dropping his cigarette on the floor and stubbing it out.

"Hey wait." Alex called after him.

"**Yes?"** Death asked looking at her, at least Alex thought he was looking at her, he didn't have any eyes or face to speak of.

"It was nice meeting you." Alex smiled at him.

"**Thanks, people aren't normally pleased to see me. Remember if you need anything, whistle on that okay?" **Death reminded her, Alex nodded and put the whistle around her neck and watched Death fade away into thin air. Alex called an ambulance for the men happy that they were in no mortal danger anymore and popped the mint imperial in her mouth and flew off home happily.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: I'd just like to take a bit of time out of the story to say hi to my reviewers. Specifically LovelyxBunchaxCoconuts comment on what exactly Alex is: "i still don't know what alex is. is she a fourtha or a halfa or a three-fourtha? this is the question that haunts me...lol. that was a really bad un-intended sarcastic pun. lol update ASAP!" I couldn't stop laughing at the phrase three-fourtha! Anyway, thanks to all my reviewers, I won't list them here as it's now 16 for the last chapter, but you know who you all are, and I love yeh!

OoOoOoOo

Alex pushed off of the window ledge with her feet and flew out of her window, she was enjoying the cool night flights more and more these days. Though the pests that she was facing were becoming more and more frequent and rampant. Just the other night she had begun dealing with urban legends and people were starting to be able to see them now as well, she could now attest to the fact that vampires were no fun!

But luckily tonight seemed to be a quiet night, she was staying high up in the air, people had started seeing her and getting more than a little unnerved and scaring people was the last thing that Alex wanted to do. Unless they were cheerleaders of course, in which case, they were fair game.

Not too far away from Alex, Danny Phantom was flying over the industrial part of town when he got the biggest ghost sense that he'd had in his life, his breath fogged so much he was barely able to see in front of his own face! He narrowed his eyes at a building below him that looked somewhat suspicious and glowing at the windows. He swooped low becoming intangible and poking his head through the ceiling. Danny's eyes widened, Skulker, Desiree, Technus, Ember and Walker were all in the room below him!

"We know you're there ghost child come down." Skulker sighed without looking up, Danny drifted angrily down towards the floor.

"I'm like, 35! I'm NOT a child!" Danny fumed, "Urgh, I wish-" Danny stopped himself short when he saw Desiree's eyes light up, he knew better to use the word wish in front of her.

"Spoilsport." Desiree growled grumpily at being denied her wish.

"What are you all doing together anyway?" Danny asked suspiciously.

"As much as this is against the rules, we're concerned about a new ghost child." Walker commented coldly.

"What? A NEW ghost child?" Danny blinked genuinely surprised about this.

"Here is a picture." Technus offered handing Danny a photo and proudly stroking his new and questionably acquired digital camera. Danny looked at the picture in his hands, the girl was indeed a child, probably no more than Alex's age but she looked almost like a skeleton… or some kind of flying zombie.

"So… what about her? I've never seen her." Danny shrugged.

"Well she's striking fear into the hearts of mortals and ghosts alike. It's not good!" Skulker huffed.

"He screams like a girl." Ember laughed, Skulker glared at her but said nothing.

"Apparently she's out to destroy the world, ghost and moral." Desiree said smoothly as she sidled up to Danny.

"And that would be bad. Well at least this explains why you're not all attacking each other." Danny admitted. This didn't sound good, even if they were lying, which was likely, this deserved at least an investigation on his part.

"And why you should stay out of our way. It's in your best interest as well." She coaxed him.

"I don't co-operate with you, you're the bad guys remember?" Danny frowned before flying through ceiling with the picture in his hand.

"He'll co-operate." Walker grinned evilly.

"I don't care, as long as he doesn't get in my way then the hunt is on." Skulker agreed preparing his traps.

Danny flew high above Amity Park keeping his eyes open for any sign of ghosts, especially this new one. He glanced back down at the picture, entirely green eyes, black and white skin. The girl's face was mostly obscured by a long mass of hair, it almost reminded him of Desiree's except it was white. He sighed again and looked back up at the clouds, could he really trust any information that came from that lot? But at any normal opportunity they would be at each others throats, including his, the fact that they weren't was strange enough; but was it strange enough to believe them? A white and black shape flitted across his vision in the corner of his eye and he instinctively took chase.

Alex swirled in the air, lost in her own world, she rolled and tumbled through the air just enjoying the sheer joy of flight, banking sharply upwards she broke through the cloud bank and hung in the air marvelling at the moon shining serenely among the clouds. The world was peaceful and calm and was at the most beautiful as she'd ever seen it.

"_Wonderful isn't it?"_ a voice from beside Alex sighed happily. Alex flinched startled at the sight of a rosy-skinned woman with long red hair and a bandage over her eyes.

"Are… are you blind?" Alex asked cautiously.

"_Yes. Love is meant to be after all."_ The woman smiled as she turned her head towards Alex.

"Then… how can you see all this?" She asked curiously.

"_I see inner beauty. And this, this is beautiful." _Love sighed.

"Yeah. You know, I'm kind of getting used to this; meeting people that I thought were just figures of speech, you, the tooth fairy, death." Alex continued.

"_He's a sweetie isn't he? Not nearly as mean as he makes himself out to be. I see he gave you a gift, he must like you."_ Love smiled referring to Alex's whistle.

"Yeah. Can I ask you something?" Alex said suddenly as she turned to Love.

"_Of course, is it about that boy you like?"_ Love smiled knowingly.

"I- no. Something else." Alex blushed.

"_Go on."_ Love nodded as her red hair danced in the wind and clouds around them swirled.

"After… after the reshuffle is over. Will I loose my powers?" Alex asked worriedly.

"_I'm not sure. Probably, as you won't be assisting the system anymore."_ Love admitted, Alex felt sad and gazed around the landscape of clouds, moonlight and night sky, behind her Danny Phantom stealthily flew through a cloud and watched her.

"This is so beautiful, I guess I won't see it ever again when this is all over." She murmured out loud. About twenty feet away Danny gasped, maybe Stalker and the others had been right after all.

"_Don't be sad. You're doing your job well." _Love comforted Alex unheard to Danny's ears.

"I destroy more of them each day, I'm sure the end of all this is getting closer." Alex sighed before disappearing through the clouds, Love looked sadly at her before fading away.

Danny clenched his fist, he wasn't willing to let some ghost destroy the world that he fought so hard to protect! Even if it did mean co-operating with the other ghosts, but first he'd rather try taking this ghost girl down with his father.

Alex padded through the kitchen the next morning, exhausted from her late night ghosting, she poured cereal and milk into her bowl and pulled a spoon out of the drawer. Suddenly her eye caught on the open door to her father's office which was glowing slightly, she nudged the door open with her foot whilst trying to keep her bowl steady to avoid cereal and milk loss. Her father was slumped over his desk snoring loudly, he'd obviously been pulling an all-nighter, Alex rolled her eyes, her father was terrible for this whenever a big ghost problem appeared. She idly shifted her gaze to her father's top ten most wanted ghosts, the usual ones on the top of the list were either Skulker, Walker or Technus, whichever was causing him the most problems at the time. Alex knew their abilities as well as Danny did with the amount of information he kept on them.

But her eyes widened, there was a new ghost on the top of the list, in fact almost all the others, especially the ones usually in the top ten had been erased leaving just the #1 wanted ghost. Her bowl clattered to the floor as she gazed at her own pale skin and long white hair of herself in ghost form. The scribbled writing in marker under it said:

NAME: Unknown

POWERS: Unknown

GOAL: Destruction of the known universe!

STOP AT **ALL** COSTS!

Alex fled the room and ran out of the front door in blind panic. The sound of the front door slamming woke Danny up, he sat bolt upright and blearily looked around the room after removing the piece of paper stuck to the drool on his face; he frowned at the upturned cereal bowl on the floor in puzzlement.

"Alex?" He called to the empty house.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: For all those who didn't catch Aaron's last name in the earlier chapters, this is a little explanation. Including a shot into Danny's life between the TV series and Alex being born. All of those who made the connection in the earlier chapters let me know! -

Dash Baxter looked up from reading his sports magazine at the sound of a knock at the door. He frowned, who would be up at this time in the morning? It was six in the morning and he had only just gotten dressed. He stood up and ambled over to the door and opened it curiously, Alex stood there her face streaming with tears, still in her pyjamas and with nothing on her feet.

"Alex! What- what are you doing here?" Dash asked before Alex threw herself at him sobbing, he stumbled backwards his prosthetic metal leg clanging against a chair, he blinked surprised at the teenage girl affixed to his chest and sobbing incoherently.

"Uh… there there?" He offered stunned, "Aaron!" He yelled up the stairs for his son. Several loud thuds alerted him to the fact that his son was out of bed and coming down the stairs.

"Alex?" He asked blearily.

"Ughwashnvjs!" Alex sobbed incoherently from Dash's midriff.

"Any idea what this is about?" Dash asked hopefully, Aaron shook his head wide-eyed in shock and walked closer to Alex hoping to glean some sense from her wailings.

"Alex… what happened?" Aaron asked leaning closer to her.

"HmwahDADmffphaaaa." Alex whined through tears and sniffling.

"Right… okay your dad… what about your dad?" Aaron continued pulling Alex off of his father and towards the sofa and tissues.

"He… he…waaaah!" Alex sobbed reaching for a tissue.

"He..f-found out about m-m-me and now I'm on his list!" Alex sniffed rubbing her eyes and blowing her nose.

"What list? What did he find out?" Aaron asked completely puzzled. Alex's eyes widened, she'd really screwed herself over this time. She'd kept her new powers a total secret from everyone, even her friends and now Aaron was going to pressure her to tell him, in front of his father too!

"I… nothing." Alex said quietly and sunk deeply into the Baxter's soft leather sofa.

"Nothing my ass." Dash frowned poking Alex in the shoulder.

"Really. It's nothing." Alex insisted waving her hands at him.

"Alex, I've known you since the day you were born, I was at your naming ceremony, I was at your mothers funeral, I was there on yours and Aarons first day of high school. I KNOW when you're lying." Dash sighed rolling his eyes.

"He's right, and you're pretty crap at it too." Aaron nodded.

"I can't tell you, you'd hate me, like Dad does." Alex sighed.

"What could you possibly tell us that'd make US hate you?" Dash groaned annoyed, Alex was as stubborn as her mother and father put together. Alex squirmed under their staring but then sighed before pressing her fists together. Dash's eyes widened as he saw those familiar white rings appear and slide over Alex's body leaving the "ghost girl" that had been storming the news lately in Amity Park. Memories of those same rings appeared before his eyes…

He remembered the car crash in college, he'd been drunk admittedly, but he, Danny and Sam were all in the car together, against their better judgement and he was trying to scare Danny. He'd stopped beating him up so much by that point but still enjoyed messing with him, he'd never meant to get that close to the edge of the road. But he remembered distinctly watching Danny Fenton change before his eyes into Danny Phantom and pull him and Sam from the car, he still ended up loosing his leg when the car buckled though. Suddenly it had all made sense, Danny had flown him to the hospital telling him about his secret identity and how he came across his powers in an effort to keep him conscious despite the blood loss.

He'd never forgotten Danny's kindness after all the years of beatings that he'd given him, it was in fact Danny's own father who had set Dash up with his athletic metal leg after the accident. He'd never been able to follow through with his sports career though and instead went into coaching, and when Aaron was born only two months before Alex was, Danny was there. They'd been close ever since, Danny and Sam even made him Alex's godfather, and, like Danny he'd promised never to reveal Danny's secret to Alex. Although this present situation was presenting a problem to that. He glanced at his son who was gob smacked at this turn of events and shot him a warning look, he lent down to Alex and gave her a hug.

"That was what all that fuss was about?" He teased her, Alex looked up at him surprised.

"I… you?" Alex stuttered.

"Don't care. I'm guessing your father saw you like this and didn't realise that it was you under there and went off the deep end?" Dash smiled, Alex nodded dumbly. "I'll… have a word with him. Or something." Dash promised uncertain of how to go about said promise.

"You freak!" Aaron yelped jumping on Alex and punching her in the ribs. "HOW could you go through something like this and NOT TELL ME! You suck!" he snapped tickling Alex in annoyance.

"I didn't know what you'd think!" Alex shrieked uncontrollably.

"Please. I tell you EVERYTHING that goes on in my life, and you go ghost and don't tell me!" Aaron demanded locking her in a headlock and noogieing her painfully.

"ARGH! I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Alex begged as tears of laughter ran down her face.

Not to far away Skulker and Technus floated in the air looking at a small monitor on Skulker's arm.

"There! My tracking system has indicated that the ghost girl has… gone ghost as the term goes." Skulker alerted as they flew off towards the Baxter's house.

"Indeed, now that we've tracked down her location, then I can really begin to infiltrate her life!" Technus grinned as he looked through the window at Alex and Aaron play fighting, his eyes focused on the digital watch on Alex's wrist. Skulker smiled in victory as he watched Technus merge himself with the software in the ghost-girl's watch, he let out an evil chuckle and flew away; plans were moving along swiftly indeed.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks once again to all my reviewers, the story is now in full swing and we're coming quickly to the events that will lead to the end of the story. bows enjoy.

Dash straightened up, Alex and Aaron were watching early morning cartoons and eating some horrible sugar infused breakfast cereal whilst doing it too. He looked at the phone, he should really call Danny and tell him and Alex was here so he wouldn't worry about her; but what excuse could he use? He couldn't tell him that Alex saw his list and freaked out, the dilemma of calling Danny halted when the phone rang.

"Hello?" Dash asked picking it up.

"Oh god, Dash is Alex there! I can't find her anywhere!" Danny demanded sounding panicky.

"It's okay, she's here. We think she was… uh… sleepwalking…" Dash fumbled for an excuse.

"Sleepwalking?" Danny asked puzzled.

"Uh... yes! Sleepwalking, she showed up on the doorstep as confused as us. Heheh." Dash winced, that was poor, even for him.

"Ookay… do you want me to pick her up?" Danny asked him still slightly confused.

"Oh nono, she's fine here. I think she's still got a spare set of clothes around here that she left last time by accident. I'll send her off to school with Aaron. Okay, bye." Dash sighed putting down the phone, that was close.

"Sleepwalking?" Aaron asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh shut up, I'd like to have seen YOU do better." Dash growled at his son, he glanced over at Alex who was still in her ghost form.

"You'd better change back before anyone sees you like that." Dash sighed, Alex nodded and white rings slid back over her body leaving her in her pyjamas and rather scuffed up bare feet.

"YOWCH!" Alex yelped shaking her wrist, "Damn thing shocked me!" she whimpered taking it off and rubbing her sore wrist.

"Lemme see that, H o'clock? The damn thing's fried, eh chuck it." Aaron nodded throwing it in the trash. Unbeknownst to Alex and Aaron Technus was now floating above their house in cold shudders.

"I..it's that Fenton brat! The ghost child's kid! Urgh, mission accomplished, I'm getting outta here!" Technus whimpered flying off. He hated being around this ghost child, she filled him, and the other ghosts, with complete dread, when they looked into her eyes when she was in her ghost form, they saw the end of their world. They saw themselves ceasing to exist, she was a figure of ghost legend. One day, it was said, a ghost child would appear and fill all ghosts with terror in it's presence; and on the eve of Halloween the ghost child would tear the sky asunder and all the world would cease to exist. Technus had never held much sway with legend before, but he felt in his ectoplasm that this child was that ghost child of legend. And she needed to be dealt with, before the eve of Halloween which unfortunately was two weeks away from now.

He floated into the abandoned warehouse that he and the other ghosts under their temporary truce were using as a base.

"Well? Did you get the creeps and run away?" Ember grinned at his early arrival.

"No! I know who she is." Technus blustered trying to sound macho.

"Well?" Walker prompted after a few moments of silence.

"Well what?" Technus blinked confused.

"Well tell us who she is of course!" Desiree snapped annoyed at his stupidity, how had she been degraded into working with THESE idiots?

"She's Danny Phantom's child." Technus replied.

"Well well, the ghost-child of the ghost-child. How convenient." Skulker smirked and thoughtfully stroked his chin.

"Hardly! She's been around ghost fighters all her life AND she's part ghost! How is this a good thing!" Ember fumed her hair blazing in anger.

"Because the ghost child is after her as well, and he doesn't realise that she's his offspring." Skulker pointed out.

"And if we let him take her out she'll be out of the picture and he'll be so devastated when he realises what he's done that he'll cease to be a thorn in our sides forever!" Technus laughed manically.

"Exactly." Skulker grinned.

"We need to draw his attention to her though…" Desiree murmured thoughtfully.

"And I have just the prisoner for the job." Walker smiled evilly.

The door to Johnny 13's cell was rarely opened, so he was surprised when it did just that, he was even more surprised to see the warden, Walker, there. He frowned, this couldn't be anything good.

"What do you want?" he asked suspiciously.

"How would you like to be a free man?" Walker smiled menacingly at him.

"That depends, what's it gonna cost me? We've all heard about what you tried to do to wulf." Johnny replied cautiously.

"Nothing at all, I just want you and your bad luck shadow to wreak a little havoc and blame it on a certain girl." Walker smirked.

"Well then… you got yourself a deal." Johnny said standing up, his bad-luck shadow under his feet, Walker stepped aside revealing Johnny's motorbike.

"Oh yes, you definitely got yourself a deal." Johnny smiled rubbing his hands together and mounting his motorbike, he revved the engine before speeding off to an exit out of the ghost zone.

Left alone Walker smiled in triumph, "And so the plan begins."


	15. Chapter 15

Alex flew low over the street before skidding to a halt in front of a group of terrified pedestrians and motorists, she turned away from them and glared at what she was here to deal with. Long scaly glowing alligators crawled up from the sewers in front of her and roared and growled at the civilians; it was the old "alligators in the sewers urban legend" which, to be fair was dying out, who honestly would believe it?

"Back off!" Alex snapped, her fists glowing threateningly. One of the alligators turned to her and bared it's sharp teeth at her, it growled and lunged at her. Alex dodged out of the way in shock, alligators couldn't do that!

"Argh… of course they can… they're not REAL alligators." Alex cursed herself as she tried to draw the attention of the alligators away from the innocent bystanders who were huddling in terror. Alex zapped a few of the ones circling her before glancing at one advancing on a little boy trapped between a crashed car and a wall. She lunged at it and grabbed it's tail and dragged it backwards with a lot of effort, a green glow surrounded her and her eyes shone brightly as a sudden burst of supernatural strength enabled her to swing the alligator by its tail across the road into a tree.

"My baby!" A woman yelped running over to the child and swooping it up in her arms, she stared at Alex in horror, fear and gratitude all mixed together.

"Go on, get out of here. Get everybody out of here, I'll handle these. Go!" Alex ordered her as she fired a blast at another alligator advancing on her. The woman nodded before running off and motioning others to do the same in the now clear path defended by Alex.

As the last few people ran off in terror the alligators disappeared, without an audience there was no point in being there. Alex floated in the air exhausted, the street was a mess, holes in the pavement everywhere, trees knocked down and one very wonky lamp-post.

Danny Phantom hovered in mid-air and stared in shock at the flood of screaming people running away from a street up the road, he bristled with anger, a ghost was about. And sure enough as he flew closer his breath clouded and he shuddered, his ghost sense agreed with him. Suddenly something knocked into the back of his head, he turned around quickly to see a nervous looking Ember beside him, it was her guitar that had bashed his head.

"What do you want?" He asked annoyed.

"I… is she there?" Ember asked sounding unusually un-confident.

"I'll see. What's with you anyway?" Danny frowned at Ember's unusual behaviour.

"You haven't looked into her eyes yet have you?" Ember shuddered, Danny shook his head but said nothing. "Try it, THEN you'll see why we're all so scared of her."

Danny flew around the corner and saw the destroyed street and the crashed cars, and right in the centre of it hovered the ghost-girl. Her head was turned up to the sky and her eyes were closed, she looked almost peaceful. Danny growled, she was enjoying the terror that she had caused those people.

"Hey! YOU!" Danny snapped, the ghost girl's eyes snapped open and she turned her head towards them.

"You're Danny Phantom aren't you? And you, you're Ember McLain." Alex commented almost distantly, she seemed to recover after a second and scowled at Danny. "And here I was under the impression that you were one of the good guys, but from the company you keep I see otherwise." Alex scowled at him and her eyes flared a bright green leaving no pupils at all.

Danny's heart caught in his chest, her eyes filled him with a sense of terror, he could feel the world around him caving in, the scenery around him ripped apart leaving him in an empty void with just himself and the ghost girl. He knew, he did know how he knew but he just FELT it in every fibre of his being that the world was going to end, his soul would be left in the void and she would be the cause. The illusion ended and he found himself shuddering in a cold sweat, next to him Ember was paler than usual and whimpering in fear. His breath caught in his throat, he held his hand up towards the ghost girl, fighting every instinct in his body to run away and fired a blast of ectoplasm at her before fleeing.

Alex tumbled backwards and rubbed her sore cheek where the blast had hit, she stared into the sky at the retreating figures of Ember and Danny Phantom.

"Weird…" Alex murmured as she changed back to her human form. The tooth fairy's words rang back in her head…

"_Ghosts are just dead people, nothing to do with your part of the system, so they're not you're concern, I doubt any will go near you anyway."_

Alex frowned, were they… afraid of her? It certainly seemed that way, but why on earth would they be? She was just fixing problems until the re-shuffle went through, she might be scary to parts of the system like jinx's but surely not to ghosts. Unless… well the tooth fairy had just said to her that ghosts weren't anything to do with her, she didn't mention whether or not they would be affected by the re-shuffle at all… Alex shook her head, she was just thinking silly thoughts now, she'd better get back before her father realised that she was late.

"Was that… Danny Phantom hauling ass away from you?" Aaron asked coming around the corner looking warily for alligators.

"Yeah, and he was with one of the evil ghosts. He hit me too." Alex frowned rubbing her cheek that was already starting to bruise.

"Wasn't he meant to be one of the good guys though?" Aaron blinked surprised, everything in their project had indicated that he was good just misunderstood.

"Yeah, ow." Alex whimpered rubbing her cheek.

"C'mon, we'd better get you back before your father freaks out on me for keeping you away from home for so long. How are we going to explain that though?" He asked pointing at Alex's cheek.

"I dunno, catfight with the popular girls?" Alex suggested walking off with Aaron.

"Eh, it's not like that hasn't actually happened before." He laughed turning the corner.

Far above the cloud line and still shaking off the creeps from staring into that ghost girl's eyes, he frowned, that settled it, the other ghosts weren't lying. That ghost girl was DEFINITELY evil and out to destroy the world, and she had to be stopped by all means.

Next to him Ember smiled, although slightly shakily, all was falling into place.


	16. Chapter 16

"So… my house? Tonight? Bring your own movies and hopefully nothing will get stolen." Aaron smiled at his friends, including Max who he now happily considered a friend.

"Sure, any film at all?" Max asked hopefully.

"Sure, why not." Aaron nodded as he closed his locker leaving his books for the day there.

"Why do you keep inviting him? You know what happened at Fenton Works, you can't tell me that you don't believe he didn't have anything to do with it!" Josh hissed as Alex and Max talked off to the side at Alex's locker. Alex giggled happily at something Max had said, Josh shuddered, how he hated him.

"I will tell you that I don't think that he had anything to do with it. Anyway, there's nothing to steal at my house." Aaron sighed feeling very sick of Josh's jealousy.

"Heya stranger!" Alex smiled opening the door to Max who looked very windswept and wet from the rain outside.

"Hey, I think I must have misread Josh's directions here; I've been wandering around here for ages trying to find my way. I eventually made it by reading the mailboxes." Max sighed as he walked into Aaron's house and took his coat off whilst shaking the last of the cold rain out of his hair.

"Yes, must have been something like that." Aaron said flatly as he glared at Josh who tried his best to look innocent.

"Here let me take those from you, you look frozen!" Alex exclaimed taking the films and snacks that Max had brought and setting them on the coffee table.

"Oh wow… that's… that's a lot of sports trophies!" Max said in awe as he caught sight of the Baxter's mantelpiece which indeed held about ten sports trophies.

"Ah, eight of them are my dad's. The two on the ends are mine." Aaron smiled proudly.

"These… these are amazing. Your dad must be some athlete." Max complimented him as he inspected them. His eyes caught a photo in the middle of the mantelpiece, his fingers brushed it as he stared entranced at it. Somewhat faded at the edges it showed a twenty-something year old man who had a striking resemblance to Aaron, the football he was holding helped this image, another slightly scruffier and scrawnier looking man of the same age stood next to him with black hair hanging in his blue eyes, and on the end wearing all black and staring straight out of the photo into Max's eyes was a beautiful woman. He stared fixated, she was slender and long black hair hung down her shoulders, she wore a mischievous daring smile and her purple eyes felt like they were piercing through.

"Who's that…" Max whispered.

"That's… Alex's mother." Aaron whispered back hoping Alex wouldn't hear.

"I've met her father before, that's him in the middle right? But… never her mother, how come?" Max asked quietly.

"I… she's dead. Alex doesn't like to talk about it." Aaron explained.

"Oh… I didn't… she never said…" Max gasped.

"Yeah, you'd have to ask her about it. I don't wanna say anything that she doesn't want me to ya know?" Aaron shrugged.

"What don't I want you to know?" Alex asked suddenly behind them, she had an eerie habit of being a very quiet walker at times.

"N-nothing!" Aaron attempted to plaster on a wide smile. Alex's eyes fell onto the picture in Max's hands.

"My mother." Alex said quietly.

"I… She's very beautiful, you look a lot like her you know." Max smiled softly as he handed the photo to her.

"I get that a lot. I don't remember much of her." Alex said sadly, suddenly visions of giant green and purple glowing animals flashed behind her eyes and a distant scream haunted her head. Alex took a deep breath and replaced the photo on the mantelpiece and walked into the kitchen.

"Smooth." Josh smirked after Alex had left the room.

"Shut up. I'm going to go talk to her, be right back." Aaron sighed following Alex.

"I didn't mean to upset her." Max mumbled feeling bad.

"Hey, listen. I may not like you," Josh sighed leaning forward.

"I realised that already." Max said coldly as he remembered the fake directions.

"BUT I don't like to see Alex upset, so you're going to make it up to her. It's her birthday this Sunday, you should get her a present, cheer her up." Josh smiled.

"That's not a bad idea, I'll get her something nice to make her feel better." Max smiled feeling better already.

"Yeah, that's a great idea." Josh smiled as his plan began to fall into place.

It took Max a fair amount of time to decide what to get Alex, he wasn't sure if she liked chocolate and it was too date-y for their current standing, he didn't know what music or films she already owned but he eventually bought her present a day before her birthday. It was about 11 in the morning when he showed up at her house with his present under his arm and rang the doorbell.

"Who could that be?" Alex frowned stirring her hot chocolate.

"Gee, I wonder how we could find out." Danny commented not getting up from the table.

"I'll get it." Alex groaned at her father's sarcasm.

"You must be a mind reader." Danny gasped in mock surprise and turned the page in his newspaper.

"Oh! Hi Max, what on earth are you doing here?" Alex asked cheerfully.

"I brought you a present, happy birthday." Max smiled offering the gift. The sound of Alex's mug crashing to the floor and shattering made him jump, a pool of hot chocolaty liquid flooded down the steps to Alex's front door.

"Ack! Alex are you okay?" Max yelped moving out of the way of the very hot hot chocolate.

"I… you… present." Alex stuttered.

"Yes, it is your birthday right?" Max asked worried that he'd gotten the day wrong.

"I don't celebrate my birthday." Alex said numbly.

"Why not?" Max asked surprised.

"My mother died on my birthday, eight years ago today." Alex breathed trying to calm down.

"Oh god. I… I didn't… I didn't know." Max apologised realising that Josh had set him up.

"It's okay, you didn't know. It's not your fault." Alex sighed shaking her head and walking down the steps to Max.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. The whole reason I did this was to make it up to you for upsetting you the other day at Aaron's house about your mother." Max sighed.

"That's sweet. I haven't had a birthday since I was six, I never wanted one and everyone else was too scared or sensitive to try." Alex smiled softly with tears in her eyes.

"I… well, do you want it anyway? It's your present after all." Max offered the gift once again.

"Oh… I don't know…" Alex said biting her lip.

"I know this must be a really crappy day for you each year, and for it to be your birthday is not fair at all, so you might as well make the most of it." Max said persuasively as they walked around the side of the house to the garden. Alex sat down on the grass with Max, he offered the gift box to her. Alex's hands closed shakily around it, it was a black box with a green ribbon around it. She tugged on the ribbon and it came free with no resistance at all.

"I don't know if I can do this." Alex sighed.

"It's entirely your choice." Max agreed holding his hands up in a gesture of peace. Alex lifted the lid of the box and a glint of silver caught her eye, the lid slid back and tumbled gently to the floor.

"Oh wow…" Alex breathed, it was a necklace, on a thin silver chain hung a small blue pendant shaped like a sun. Max picked it up and slid it around Alex's neck fastening it at the back and allowing his fingers to brush the nape of her neck making her shiver.

"It's… lovely. Thank you." Alex smiled.

"You're welcome." Max smiled back.

From the kitchen window Danny smiled, it was about time his daughter had a birthday again. And she was even falling in love at the same time too; he slid the curtain back and headed towards his office, he had ghosts to catch.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: Thank you so much to all my reviewers, I know this is a chapter that lots of you have been waiting for so here it is.

Alex flew low over the town keeping an eye out for strange activities, it had been quiet for the past few days with the exception of the usual jinx's which were barely a challenge for her anymore. The only thing that had ever been giving her any problems was Danny Phantom, but he hadn't shown up for days. Not since the alligator incident. She didn't really want to be out tonight, but she felt she had a duty to be. She hadn't yet visited her mum's grave yet today as she always did this day every year and she was hoping for a quiet night so she could justify finishing early so she could go to the graveyard.

"HEY!" A voice from behind her shouted, Alex pivoted in mid-air and looked down towards the speaker, it was Danny Phantom, but this time he was carrying some sort of gun; it looked almost like her grandfather's Fenton Foamer, but it couldn't be that.

"What do you want?" Alex asked warily.

"I want you to get out of here!" Danny snapped shooting the Fenton Foamer at her. A small burst of foam shot forward and wrapped itself around Alex's eyes, suddenly the mixture began to harden and tighten and Alex was struggling to pull it off.

"Let's see you use the evil eye on me now!" Danny growled as he fired a blast of ectoplasm from his hand at her, it hit her squarely in the chest and she tumbled downwards several feet before regaining her balance.

"Ack! What the hell is this stuff!" Alex yelped scratching desperately at the hardened goo covering her eyes.

"It's your doom!" Danny yelled punching her towards the floor. Alex crashed through several trees before landing in a crumpled heap on the ground. Alex winced and pushed herself up on her elbow, the sound of leaves rustling in front of her triggered her senses, she opened her hand and fired. Danny skidded backwards holding his stomach.

"I might not be able to see you, but I can still hear you." Alex growled as she stood up and let out a wave of green ectoplasm in the direction she thought Danny was in, the sound of him leaping from the ground let her know where she was and Alex lunged towards him.

Danny struggled with the blinded Alex before kneeing her in the stomach causing her to reel back in pain, she coughed violently a few times before raising her head to speak.

"And to think I thought you were one of the good guys." She said bitterly.

"I AM. That's why I'm here." Danny retorted shooting at her. Alex cringed as the side of her shirt crackled in the heat the blast gave off.

"But I'm not DOING anything bad." Alex growled holding her side.

"Please. I've seen your eyes, you're trying to destroy the world." Danny spat angrily as he lunged at her again.

"Destroy the world?" Alex murmured before Danny slammed into her. Danny's eyes caught sight of the steel bridge running over the river not to far away, if she couldn't see it, she couldn't phase through it, he smiled and flew towards it and started talking again.

"Don't play dumb with me." He said, and sure enough Alex followed his voice instinctively.

"I'm not!" Alex yelled firing at him and missing, she flew closer.

"_Yes… just a little closer…" _Danny thought to himself. Alex's hand raised almost involuntarily to the whistle that death had given her, but no, she could deal with this herself. Plus, she wasn't doing anything evil like he claimed, maybe he would realise that.

Danny reached forward and grabbed the ghost girl's shirt and threw her towards one of the legs of the bridge, there was a loud and sickening crack as her head and shoulders connected with the metal, she slid backwards and laid as limp as a rag doll on a horizontal support. Through the pain Alex registered her mind going black and everything disappeared.

Danny floated in the air not too far away and watched as she passed out.

"Good. It's the ghost zone for you." He growled, today of all days he hadn't been in the mood to mess around, he missed Sam terribly and this day every year made it worse. Most ghosts knew by now to avoid him on this day of the year. The day of Sam's death.

His eyes widened in shock and horror as white rings slid across the ghost's body leaving his own daughter lying in her place. He flew forward to her but gravity began to take it's toll on her body and she slipped off of the support beam and plummeted towards the river. Danny dived downwards after her, his arms outstretched towards her.

"Alex!" He screamed in shock and desperation as she hit the water and began to sink. His own body breached the water and he watched the air from Alex's lungs escape through her mouth causing her to sink faster. The hardened Fenton Foam that had been covering her eyes slid off and dissolved in the water, Alex's hair blossomed around her head as she sunk downwards through the water. Danny reached out to her as much as he could and eventually his hands grabbed onto Alex's leg, he swam upwards as fast as he could, puling Alex to the surface.

He pulled his only daughter onto the rocky shore and panicked at the fact that her chest was not moving with her breathing as it should have been. He forced air into her lungs again and again before she eventually coughed up some water and began breathing shallowly. He breathed a sigh of relief and ran his hand through her hair, his hand halted at the back of her head, it was warm and wet there. Shakily he held his hand in front of his face to see it stained with scarlet blood. Alex's blood.

In all his life he had never flown so fast, Alex was in his human arms as he burst through the hospital doors within two minutes of him launching from the ground by the river.

"Somebody help me!" He screamed as he burst through the door, nurses stared at him and Alex in shock and the room was silent for a second, suddenly there was a blur of activity, Alex was taken from his arms and rushed into a bed which was then wheeled through several doors.

Suddenly a nurse was at his side guiding him to a chair, he obeyed numbly.

"Sir, what happened?" She asked him calmly as she kneeled down to be eye to eye with him in the chair.

"I… she hit her head, and fell in the river. She stopped breathing… I…" Danny murmured.

"You resuscitated her?" The nurse offered. Danny nodded.

"Well she's in good hands, we've got the best doctors in with her, they're going to do all that they can for her." She nurse said reassuringly. Danny stiffened, he knew hospital talk, he knew those words meant that they didn't think they'd be able to do anything. He knew all the "I'm sorry sir's" and the "We did all we could's" he'd heard them all before. He breathed in that horrible hospital smell of sick people and disinfectant, he hated hospitals.

At some point he realised that the nurse had left him and he was alone in the waiting room, he stared down at the blood on his hands and cried. What had he done?


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Don't worry, Danny's not going to be wracked with the guilt of 'I murdered my daughter' I've still got one last big event to get through before this story is over. Only six days of their time left until the eve of Halloween and we all know what's happening then don't we? -

Danny stood uncomfortably in the hospital hallway with Jazz at his side, his parents were on their way after Jazz had called them, to be honest Danny didn't want them here. Not with knowing that it was him who had put Alex in the hospital.

"Mr. Fenton, your daughter has a dislocated shoulder, some damage to her ribs and a head injury." The doctor said grimly.

"What kind of head injury?" Jazz asked concerned.

"Well, there was no fractures to the skull itself but there was a lot of bleeding. However we'll have to wait until she wakes up to assess the full extent of the damage." The doctor sighed. Danny's head snapped up at this.

"Damage? Like what? If nothing's broken she'll be fine right?" Danny demanded worriedly.

"That's not always the case, things like amnesia, damage to sight, co-ordination or speech parts of the brain, possible illnesses like epilepsy, in the worst case scenarios brain damage or coma." The doctor said gently, after a pause he took his cue to walk off and leave the two siblings to themselves.

"Oh god." Danny moaned sliding down onto a chair in despair.

"I'm sure she'll be fine." Jazz assured her brother.

"Please Jazz, don't tell mum or dad, but… That new ghost girl, it's Alex. And it was me that did this to her, I didn't know, I was tricked, she just…" Danny sobbed.

"Oh… Danny…" Jazz whispered stunned. "Does… does she know that you're… who you are?" she asked carefully.

"No, but… god… she's the last thing I have of Sam. She's my life and… and I've done this to her, how can I tell her that it was me?" Danny asked unable to hold back the tears anymore. Jazz rubbed his backs soothingly.

"You didn't know it was her, it's not your fault. Maybe… you could try explaining to her? I'm not sure what would be best, to tell her and hope for the best or not tell her to protect her." Jazz mused.

"Isn't it meant to be your job to know?" Danny asked bitterly, Jazz flinched stung by his remark.

"Mr Fenton, your daughter is awake now, you can come in." The doctor said poking his head around the corner. Danny stood up and walked in the room wiping his tears away, Alex was slightly propped up in bed with a nurse interrogating her and shining a torch into her eyes.

"Do you know what day it is?" The nurse asked shining the light in Alex's eyes.

"Urgh, it's Sunday. It's my birthday." Alex groaned turning away from the torch.

"Happy birthday." The nurse smiled cheerfully.

"Obviously not." Alex said flatly, the nurse seemed uncomfortable at this.

"Your mother and father's names?" The nurse asked after a moment as she tucked her torch away.

"Danny Fenton, and my mother's name WAS Sam Fenton." Alex sighed, Danny noticed that her left arm was completely limp and her shoulder looked… very dislocated.

"Do you remember what happened to you?" the nurse asked standing up.

"I… no. I don't remember anything leaving the house for a walk." Alex replied uncomfortably.

"What time was that?" The nurse asked.

"About nine." Alex answered slowly.

"You were brought in at about ten in the evening, it's 2am Monday morning now by the way. You only lost an hour, consider yourself lucky." The doctor nodded satisfied.

"Great, can you fix my shoulder now?" Alex asked annoyed.

"Of course, this… is going to hurt a lot." The doctor warned her as he walked towards her and laid his clipboard down.

"Aren't you meant to say that it's not going to hurt?" Alex asked nervously.

"That's only when it's going to hurt. This is going to hurt an AWFUL lot." He said picking up her arm gently and feeling her shoulder joint.

"Ready?" He asked her after a moment or two.

"I guess…" Alex winced. The doctor violently snapped her shoulder back into place and it gave a horrible crack as it did so, Danny flinched and felt the guilt well up inside of him all over again. Alex proceeded to swear loudly and profusely as tears trickled down her face.

"Well… I see your lungs are fine." The doctor said after a moment.

"Don't I get a lolly or an ice cream for that?" Alex whimpered.

"No. You get bedrest, it's late." The doctor nodded before leaving the room.

"I… Alex, I'm so sorry." Danny said quietly as he moved to Alex's bedside and stroked the part of her hair that wasn't encased in the bandages wrapped around her head.

"Don't be. You're the one who brought me in here after all, if it hadn't been for you finding me who knows what could have happened." Alex smiled softly, she leant to the side and hugged her father with her good arm, "I love you dad, I'm sorry for scaring you." Alex sighed.

Danny bit his lip, now how could he tell her?

"You'd better get some sleep baby, I'll be here all night I promise." Danny smiled arranging Alex's pillows so she could lie flat.

"G'night Dad." Alex mumbled feeling sleepy.

"Yo, wake up." A voice said to Alex.

"Urgh?" Alex groaned opening her eyes, she looked up at Aaron.

"Heya. What the hell happened to you then?" He asked sitting on the edge of her bed.

"I got into a fight when I was out for a walk." Alex answered with a one-shouldered shrug, her other shoulder was still very sore.

"That's total crap, you're a terrible liar." Aaron pointed out.

"Urgh, okay. Do NOT tell my father, but… it was Danny Phantom. He attacked me and dad found me and brought me to the hospital, I almost drowned apparently." Alex sighed resting her head back on the pillow.

"That sucks. How'd he find you so quickly?" Aaron asked after a moment.

"Beats me, knowing him he's probably got me micro-chipped or something." Alex laughed gently, suddenly her face became serious. "I'll tell you what though, when I find that Danny Phantom, I'm gonna rip him apart, molecule by molecule." Alex growled clenching her fist which flared with green ectoplasmic light.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: sorry for the delay folks, I've been working a lot lately and then my keyboard died on me ;; but I'm back now with a bit of a slow chapter as a rest from all the recent excitement. Musings on people's relationships with Alex. Enjoy my lovely reviewers.

"_I'll tell you what though, when I find that Danny Phantom, I'm gonna rip him apart, molecule by molecule."_

Danny Fenton, though presently in the form of Danny Phantom hovered invisibly in the air in the corner of Alex's room, he hadn't even meant to fly through there, he was so on his way to get back those ghosts that made him hurt his Alex that he hadn't been paying attention.

Alex's harsh words rang in his head, she had rarely sounded so much like his father before; he remembered the days of when he had to hide his ghost powers from his father. He remembered the deceit and the fear of being caught. Did Alex feel that way around him? And would she still feel the same about destroying him if she knew that Danny Phantom was really Danny Fenton?

He shook his head, he hadn't ever planned to bring up the topic of his ghostly-ness with Alex, as par Sam's instructions. For a moment he could almost feel Sam at his side, would she want him to go to these lengths to keep these things a secret from their daughter? She said that they'd cross this ghost bridge when they came to it, together, but she was no longer here and to be honest he knew that he was floundering. But Sam had always been the smarter one, he hated to admit it, and he wasn't stupid by any means but Sam had always been sharper and quicker on the uptake. Something that Alex had inherited from her. What if Alex ever discovered him, it wasn't hard, his ghost name was hardly a stretch to his real name. And he had known that if Alex has spent more time investigating the matter she would have realized; the moment when she explained his own accident to him through sheer guesswork had frightened him.

He looked down at Alex from his invisible hiding spot, all venom was gone in her voice and she was laughing and joking with Aaron happily again. His face softened, he knew Alex was the same age as he was when he got his powers, older now actually with her just turning fifteen, but she seemed far too young, far too innocent for all of this. And it hit him, he was worried that his daughter, his only daughter and his only connection left to Sam, for her family had deserted him the moment Sam was parted from him, and he was scared, terrified of her reaction to him. It was like telling his parents his secret all over again. Except worse, however much you love your parents it never compares to the love a parent feels for their child, the one that they saw born, the one that they cradled in the first moments of their life. If Alex were to hate him when or if she found out… well… it didn't bear thinking about.

Danny growled as his mind fell upon those who had forced this situation upon him, those ghosts, Stalker, Technus, Desiree, Walker, Ember… what a fool he had been to trust them. His fist clenched and he flew off to his original destination, to beat the crap out of a few evil ghosts.

"So I'll bring you back some science stuff for your to get your brain around then." Aaron nodded.

"Yeah, I'm sure I'll go out of my mind here all day with nothing to do, but they're insisting on keeping me here for 'observation'. I hate hospitals." Alex sighed.

"Kay, want me to bring you back your boy?" Aaron teased knowing that this comment would get a rise out of her.

"He's not my boy!" Alex scolded him, Aaron laughed anyway until his eye caught on something. His eyes fell to the small blue sun pendant resting lightly in the hollow between Alex's collarbones, it was almost hidden by her sling, perhaps why he hadn't noticed it sooner. His fingers lifted it off of her chest for further inspection.

"What's this? You're not normally one for jewellery." Aaron remarked curiously as he eyed his childhood friend with a little knowing suspicion.

"I… Max gave it to me." Alex blushed squirming slightly.

"Oooh. And what was the occasion for such a gift?" Aaron probed as eloquently as ever.

"I… my birthday, yesterday. He stopped by in the morning." Alex said quietly.

"Your birthday?" Aaron remarked genuinely surprised, he had known long ago never to mention or even attempt to celebrate her birthday. Even the teachers and other students at school said nothing when the day came each year, they all knew of Sam's death and how cruel it was to say anything to her.

"And you accepted? That's unlike you." Aaron said softly knowing that this could be thin ice.

"I know… I just, I haven't had a birthday in so long. And he surprised me, he honestly didn't know why I don't celebrate them. It was so sweet that I couldn't say no, I tried but, well…" Alex trailed off.

"About damn time, I've got lots of birthday catching up to do with you for all these years." Aaron grinned.

"Heh, I guess so. I've no idea who told him though, surely anyone who told him would have warned him that I'm somewhat…" Alex searched for the word.

"Angry? Violent? Hostile?" Aaron offered, Alex glowered at him.

"Sensitive, on my birthday. Who would be so cruel to him and me to set him up for that I wonder?" Alex asked not expecting an answer as she stroked the pendant absentmindedly.

"Yes. I wonder." Aaron agreed slightly coldly as the image of Josh swam into his mind, surely he wouldn't risk being that cruel to Alex just to get one over on Max…. could he? He had seemed out of sorts since the other boy showed up, apparently fearing for his non-existent claim on the dark haired girl in question. If that were the case Aaron might have to have a slightly intimidating talk with him, he was very protective over Alex, and as much as he liked Josh, Alex came first, they had only known him since high school after all. And despite his usual gentle nature to people, he'd be perfectly willing to turn anyone into mincemeat for hurting or attempting to hurt Alex.

He remembered when they were kids the day that Sam had died, Alex barely talked for a while and lost all of her other childhood friends but him. Even when she refused to talk to anyone he stuck at her side and when she eventually came around they had a new bond. He had seen her and supported her through her worst moments, he always had her back and although their relationship was always platonic, Alex being practically a sister to him, he loved her deeply, fiercely and protectively as family. They might not have the same blood or the same parents, but it didn't matter. Even when he followed in his father's footsteps and joined the football team and thus becoming a star he still kept Alex close, she may be a science kid like her family but that didn't matter. Socially they should have been worlds apart but he stayed by her side and her by his.

It had taken him time for him to allow Josh close to Alex and to be fair he was still somewhat defensive around him, but as long as Alex enjoyed his company he would do nothing to stop him. But this… well… if Josh had set Alex up for potential tears just to get at Max, well… that was something that he would not stand. But who was to say Max was any better? He barely knew him, he seemed nice, genuine, and cared for Alex evidently; but was that enough? Was it even his call who could be trusted around Alex?

"Aaron?" Alex asked poking him, Aaron snapped from his internal musings to look at her.

"Sorry?" He murmured shaking himself out of it.

"You kinda spaced out on me there." She giggled.

"Yeah, sorry. Anyway I gotta go, some of us have school." He teased carefully hugging her to avoid hurting her.

"Meanie!" She called after him laughing. Aaron stalked down the hallway of the hospital to leave for school, he was definitely going to be getting to the bottom of things today and someone would pay for it.


	20. Chapter 20

Aaron wandered down the school hallways lost in his earlier musings, he had no worries about being scolded by teachers for loitering and he was in no rush because he was never told off for being late, one of the perks of being the schools best athlete was virtual untouchability. He rarely exploited this privilege but today was different, his eye caught on Josh getting things out of his locker, anger and suspicion welled up inside of him and he marched over.

Josh blinked for a moment or two as everything around him went into shadow, he looked up to see Aaron looming over him, he had rarely looked so tall to Josh even though he was over six foot tall. A little fear hitched itself in Josh's throat, something was up with Aaron, he had never seen him look so intimidating towards him before.

"Are you okay?" Josh asked carefully.

"Not really, Alex is in hospital so I'm not in the best of moods." Aaron stated flatly, Josh's eyes widened.

"Hospital! How? What happened? Is she okay?" Josh asked desperately.

"She'll be fine, a few scrapes, bruises and a dislocated shoulder. She'll live. I'm actually more concerned about something that she told me." Aaron said brushing off his questions and fixing him with a stare, Josh started to become uncomfortable, he didn't like that look.

"Oh?" He asked after a moment.

"Max had given her a birthday present yesterday." Aaron said watching Josh's face carefully for any trace of guilt or deceit.

"No!" Josh gasped forcing an expression of horror onto his face.

"Yes, I'm just curious as to how he knew." He continued, "who would tell him that it was Alex's birthday and not tell him to avoid mentioning it to her?"

"I- I have no idea." Josh stammered. Aaron growled, that was all he needed. Suddenly Josh found himself suspended several feet above the floor and pressed hard against the lockers by his throat, Aaron seemed to be a different person altogether now with a look of intense anger and hatred on his face. This behaviour was so out of character for Aaron that a crowd had gathered to watch in silence.

"You told him. Just to get back at Max, you told him it was her birthday and didn't tell him not to do anything. You risked wounding Alex on her most vulnerable day just over some petty grudge!" Aaron shouted angrily, the crowd looked sickened at this fact, Alex's birthday had always been a no-go zone for everyone.

"I didn't!" Josh squeaked flailing his legs in terror.

"LIAR!" Aaron roared at him.

"Stop!" A voice called from behind them both. The crowd parted to reveal Max, the crowd had gotten bigger, they all knew that this was going to be good.

"What?" Aaron asked surprised.

"Don't hurt him, please." Max sighed.

"He would have happily seen you crash and burn over Alex and have hurt her too just to get one up on you and you want me to let him go?" Aaron snapped.

"Yes, his plan failed anyway. Alex liked her gift in the end, and I think she actually enjoyed herself on that day for the first time in what she said was a long while." Max explained gently, Josh's eyes widened, his plan had gone wrong?

"What? You're lying! No way Alex would have-ack!" Josh began before croaking and spluttering as he was silenced by Aaron's grip on his throat tightening.

"Plus, if she is in hospital, don't you think that Alex has been through enough without knowing that one of the people that she considers a friend betrayed her?" Max added, Aaron sighed and dropped Josh suddenly to the ground. Josh rubbed his sore throat before a boot landed on his back.

"You're getting of this time, but if you so much set a toe out of line again, you'll be in a WORLD of pain." Aaron growled before stalking off. The crowd dispersed and Max helped Josh to his feet.

"Why?" Josh questioned rubbing his neck.

"Because I'm a better person than you are, and I'd never sink to your level of allowing others to get hurt because of my own personal biases. What you did was cruel and sick and I'd hate to be anywhere near your level, and I'm sure Aaron would hate it too if he was thinking straight. If anyone's going to put you in your place then it's going to be Alex, and if you keep this up she'll figure this out and Aaron and I will be the least of your worries." Max said coldly before walking off.

Josh stood in the empty corridor and slid down the lockers to the floor.

"We have a problem." He spoke to the empty hallway.


	21. Chapter 21

Alex walked down the road with her friends, her bag hung on one shoulder, her other was still quite sore. The four teenagers walked home in silence, each appreciating the unseasonably warm weather that they were having of late.

"Three days 'til Halloween." Alex stated with a sigh.

"Yup. What're we doing this year anyway?" Aaron asked curiously.

"Uh… no idea. Haven't really planned anything have we?" Alex sighed, suddenly her face cracked up as she burst out with laughter, "Oh god, remember when we were kids and we got onto Mr Lancer's roof and-" Alex giggled uncontrollably, Aaron also was in fits of laughter.

"And… the custard! Oh man, I've never seen ANYONE look so pissed, until our dad's showed up that is!" Aaron agreed laughing.

"What happened?" Max asked interested by the combination of Mr Lancer's roof and custard.

"Oh, you had to be there." Aaron laughed gently as he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes.

"Ah, so. Any ideas for this year?" Alex went continued.

"Why don't we go round to Max's house?" Josh suggested slyly, Max froze at this and shook his head.

"Ah, no bad idea." Max answered quickly.

"Aww, c'mon Max. You've met all of our weird families. Well, my weird family; everyone else's is fairly normal. Why can't we come round?" Alex pleaded.

"No no, really, they'd… my parents are…" Max struggled.

"Pwease?" Alex whimpered fluttering her eyelashes in an exaggerated manner.

"No. I'm sorry, I can't have any of you over." Max said coldly.

"Why not?" Aaron asked more seriously.

"I… they're… incredibly embarrassing." Max finished lamely.

"Duh, they're parents. Parents have been embarrassing since people first walked the earth, cavemen were embarrassing to their teenage kids. Always have been always will be, you've seen Alex's grandparents running around in jumpsuits, can you honestly top that?" Aaron smirked.

"Urgh, the shame." Alex moaned at the thought of those horrible jumpsuits.

"I… I can in fact. And I don't want you to meet them." Max shot back and walked ahead.

"Hey! We didn't mean to…" Aaron trailed off.

"Yeah, what've you got to hide?" Josh asked knowing that he was winning, Max stopped in the middle of the road and resisted the urge to turn around and punch Josh, instead he slowly turned and faced Alex and Aaron.

"They're… REALLY racist okay? They'd completely freak out if they knew I had friends who weren't… y'know… black." Max said quietly as he looked away from them.

"Really?" Aaron asked surprised.

"Why else would I say it?" Max snapped angrily as his face flushed in both anger and embarrassment.

"Hey, it's okay. We won't do the Halloween thing at yours then, do you still want to come out with us though?" Alex asked gently.

"I can't really do the Halloween thing, according to my parents it's evil and satanic and all that jazz." Max sighed.

"Do they really say the all that jazz part?" Aaron teased, Max laughed at this.

"Heh, no. But I guess we could meet up the day before Halloween and do stuff, if you guys want to that is." Max asked hopefully.

"I've got a football game that night, and Josh has some art thing, but you two can still go." Aaron prompted.

"But, I can cancel my art thing!" Josh piped up desperately.

"Ah, no you can't, hey isn't this our turn off? Bye!" Aaron said quickly as he very forcibly dragged Josh off protesting.

"Aaron is strange." Max said after a moment of stunned silence.

"Agreed." Alex nodded as they walked on past the road that she knew was definitely not Aaron or Josh's turn off.

"So… there's that pre-Halloween carnival on in the park right? I could go, that should pass my parent's not evil or satanic test, if I, y'know, lie." Max smiled hopefully.

"That'd be nice, it opens at seven right? How about you meet me at my house and we'll go do that. Then the next night I'm completely free to join in mine and Aaron's yearly tradition of terrorising Principal Lancer in cruel and unusual ways." Alex sighed happily.

"It sounds like a good tradition, let me know how it goes. I'll be locked indoors pretending to pray for your immortal soul with my parents. Joy." Max groaned rolling his eyes.

"Sounds fun." Alex laughed gently.

"You know, I've never really told people about them before, not honestly I mean. We move around too much really, my parents think every town is too 'sinful' for them, so I normally just lie to the people at school about them." He murmured and watched a golden leaf fall off a nearby tree.

"Well, I'm glad you trust me enough for that." Alex blushed slightly.

"Yeah, I do." Max smiled and stopped by the steps to Alex's front door.

"Well… I'd better go, I'm meant to be cooking tonight." She smiled brushing a strand of white hair out of her eyes. Max smiled at her, he did indeed like her and she was very pretty even with her unusual hair colours and strange but lovely eyes. His own eyes fell to the sparkle of silver on her collarbone, the blue sun pendant laid sparkling on her skin almost hypnotizingly.

"Yeah, oh… you're still wearing my necklace." he said somewhat surprised.

"Yes, I like it. I haven't actually taken it off yet." Alex admitted.

"I thought you would have changed your mind about it now, or had only accepted it out of politeness and secretly thrown it away by now." Max explained, Alex's fingers bushed the pendant and lifted it so she could see it herself.

"No, I do like it. I love it actually." She murmured turning red.

"I'd… better go before your dad wonders where you are." Max said without making any move to leave.

"Yeah, I should probably go indoors." Alex agreed also not leaving. Max stepped forward and bit his lip before leaning towards Alex, just at that moment some college kids drove past whistling and wooing obnoxiously and snapping both teenagers from their moment.

"I'll just go now." Max said hurriedly as he turned away.

"Bye." Alex murmured softly as she watched him go, with a sigh and a curse to all obnoxious college kids and their stupid cars she let herself into her house.


	22. Chapter 22

Alex dived out of her window, the wind roared through her long white hair as she plummeted downwards, she squinted into the force of the wind and aimed her decent. A very surprised looking Jinx was splattered into the floor not a moment later, Alex straightened up and flicked the bits of ectoplasmic goo off of her hands, she rubbed the black stain on her white skin from her previous fight with Danny Phantom. It seemed all the black blemishes to her skin were a result of previous injuries that had eternally left their mark. It was surprising the number of scratches and scrapes that she had experienced over the years, her body was covered in them!

"Oh wow Alex." Max's voice said as he rounded the corner to her back garden and stared impressed. Alex felt fear fill her body, not only had Max seen her in her ghost form but he realised that it was her.

"Max! I can explain!" Alex squeaked.

"No, no it's okay I know who you're meant to be. That ghost that's meant to be terrorising town right? Great costume." Max smiled appreciatively.

"It's not- wait… costume?" Alex said as the last bit of Max's statement caught in her head.

"Yeah, where did you get all the stuff to make it? Is that body paint?" Max asked curiously as he ran a finger down her arm making her shiver.

"Yes, I'll go with that." She said quickly.

"I feel bad now, I don't have a costume." Max commented referring to his plain jeans and black shirt.

"You look good, don't worry about it." Alex replied honestly appreciating his appearance.

"Are you ready to go then?" he asked as they walked around to the front of her house.

"Yeah, let me just get my wallet." Alex nodded sneaking inside hoping not to be noticed by her father. As Alex stepped back into the cool night air after retrieving her wallet she could already hear the distant sound of carnival music, see the bright lights in the distance and even smell the sticky scent of candyfloss. She and Max walked together talking of small things to do with school and friends and enjoying each others company.

Max handed over some money to the man selling tickets and led Alex inside, it turned out that Alex wasn't the only person not looking like herself, she witnessed several fairies a few devils and several people in bedsheet ghost costumes.

"What do you wanna do first then?" Max asked gesturing to the wide panorama of stalls, games and rides.

"Let's take a look and see shall we?" Alex smiled as they walked off together.

On the roof of the nearby building Johnny 13 sat looking down on the carnival goers, his bad luck shadow under his feet. He remembered when he was here with Jazz, he had in fact genuinely liked her, more than his ghostly girlfriend that was, that might have been why they eventually split up. He had been pleased though to see that Jazz hadn't married anyone whilst he had been in the ghost zone, it gave him some strange satisfaction when he appeared invisibly in the hospital. It was Jazz's distracting presence that had distracted him from setting his bad luck shadow on the Fenton girl like walker had ordered him to. But this time he had to get it right, he had to get rid of the girl or else he would rot in Walker's ghost prison for the rest of his afterlife.

He stared down on the crowd attempting to find the girl, he'd seen her in the hospital but he couldn't see her here, even though he had been told on no uncertain terms that she would be here. He sat down on the edge of the building, fearing that this assignment would be more difficult than he had first bargained on.

Alex set the gun down on the wooden surface of the stall and looked over at Max who's jaw was hanging open, he stared at the little shakily motorised tin figures and the vast numbers of which Alex had shot down.

"Grandpa let's me shoot stuff with his ecto-gun sometimes." Alex smirked as she took the giant teddy bear from the vendor.

"Remind me never to annoy you." Max smiled shakily.

"Don't worry, I don't shoot to kill." Alex giggled snuggling into the soft fur of the bear.

"See, I only shot one tin man down, and nearly maimed the poor man running the stall. I feel all emasculated now." Max said semi-seriously.

"Aww, would having the giant bear make you feel better?" she offered the giant fluffy purple bear.

"I'll live thanks." Max laughed. He walked slightly closer to her as they wandered through the carnival in a comfortable silence punctuated with an occasional comment about one of the stalls.

"How are you with rides?" Max asked as they came to the more ride-orientated section of the carnival, there were several large daunting rides as well as the traditional ferris-wheel. Alex thought back to a few of her stomach turning g-force turns when she had been flying in the past.

"I think I'll be fine." She said carefully, "see any that you like?" she asked looking at the wide array of rides.

"Waltzer?" He suggested pointing to a black ride in the corner. It was a ride that Alex had seen before, it consisted mostly of a hilly circuit that had a track running over it giving both the sensation of going up and down as well as around added to that was the fact that the car itself span on it's own axis created three different directions of spin. She watched as a few cheerleaders got off of the ride falling over each other will dizziness, several had already fallen over and one looked like she was going to loose her lunch.

"Definitely." Alex smiled, any ride that did that to cheerleaders rated well in her books.

Irritated Johnny 13 thumbed through the pictures that Stalker had given him of the girl that he was meant to be stopping, he stopped when he came across a slightly blurred picture of her in her ghost form. He cursed himself for being stupid, he hadn't been looking for her in her ghost for as she would be with friends. But it was the night before Halloween and most people were in costume, he'd never even noticed her walking through the carnival because he had been looking for her human form. Swearing he floated invisibly down to the floor and landed gently, he scanned the crowds but could see no sign of her, ghostly or otherwise, he carefully re-appeared and stalked off through the crowds, his bad luck shadow remaining faithfully under his feet.

Alex, unaware of her pursuer was enjoying herself. She was spinning in what felt like three angles simultaneously and was laughing and screaming with delight, also because of the tilt of the car both she and Max were close together in one corner and to be honest she was enjoying that too. The two teenagers got off the ride a short while later giggling and swerving a lot, the purple bear swinging from Alex's hand. She stumbled into a passer by and giggled an apology before staggering off after Max who was rushing off to the Ferris wheel.

Johnny 13 stood in shock, she had walked right into him and not noticed who he was, surely being her fathers daughter she must have heard about him. Despite himself Johnny was stung that he didn't seem to rate on Danny Phantom's villain list and decided to set about changing this fact as he followed the halfa's daughter through the thick crowds. He swore under his breath as the crowds increased the distance between him and the two teenagers, feeling annoyed he went intangible and simply walked through the mortals leaving many of them feeling cold and mysteriously creeped out. He arrived at the base of the Ferris wheel in time to see Alex and Max's compartment get a quarter of the way up around the wheel's circle. After a moment's thought an idea hit him and he smiled an evil smile.

"Shadow go loosen some bolts on that would you?" he smirked staring up at the two teenagers.

Alex wiggled her bare toes over the edge of the metal seat feeling secure regardless of the single metal pole restraining them in their current position in the cart.

"You know Alex, I'm glad I moved here." Max said out of the blue, Alex looked up at this.

"Really? Even though you and Josh don't get on?" she asked hopefully, Max pulled a face at this.

"Regardless of Josh's dislike of me, I do like being here. I'm glad I met you." He said softly as he shuffled slightly closer to her.

"I'm glad you moved here too." Alex murmured back as she lent up towards him. Suddenly a jolt of the chair shocked them from their private moment, Alex heard the horrible sound of twisting metal and the gasps of the crowd below.

"What the?-" Max breathed as they both craned to see bolts popping off the supports to the wheel, by now they were both near the top. Alex's eyes were focused on something different though, a dark shadow moved around the bolts that were popping off like buttons on a fat man's shirt. Below them stood a scruffy looking twenty-something man who stared up at them with malicious eyes.

"Johnny 13… I thought he was in the ghost zone." Alex muttered half annoyed and half puzzled.

"What?" Max asked not quite catching her sentence.

"Ohmygod look!" Alex exclaimed pointing off in the opposite direction, surely enough Max looked and Alex took the opportunity to blast a bolt of green light at the bad luck shadow and at Johnny 13, this caused confusion and panic for the people down below but Johnny simply smirked and didn't move.

"What was I meant to be looking at?" Max asked looking back at Alex.

"I… uh…look, right there!" Alex said pointing again, slowly and somewhat untrustingly Max followed her pointing finger to an uninteresting building. When he turned back Alex was gone and the phantom terrorising the town was swooping down towards the ground.

Alex shooed the bad luck shadow away like she had done before with the jinx's but to no avail.

"That won't work sugar." Johnny mocked her. Alex growled at this name but before she could respond, the last remaining supports to the wheel snapped and the Ferris wheel fell to the ground balancing preciously on the crushed remains of one thankfully empty carriage, with horror Alex watched as the wheel began to roll forward, suggesting the same fate for the next, and unfortunately occupied carriage. Alex flew forwards and intangibly reached through the cart and pulled the passengers to safety before dropping them to the ground and allowing them to run screaming. Alex flew forwards and reached through the second carriage and pulled the new passengers out to safety. After a few more carriages Alex realised that she was rapidly running out of road and passengers, the last one remaining being Max. As she grabbed him, the Ferris wheel crashed into a building leaving the two floating mid-air in the privacy of the (thankfully) abandoned building.

"It… wasn't a costume was it?" Max asked after a second.

"Ah… no." Alex admitted as they landed on the dusty floor, a thought occurred to her. "You won't tell anyone will you?" she asked nervously.

"Not after seeing how good a shot you are." Max reassured her, the sound of people rushing up the stairs to them prompted Alex to turn back into her human form.

"Where did the ghost go?" A fat man demanded angrily.

"She flew out the roof!" Alex exclaimed convincingly.

"She saved us." Max added.

"Hmm, knowing that ghost she probably CAUSED that accident." The man harrumphed.

"But, why would she save us then?" Alex snapped, the men didn't answer her but turned away instead but she could swear mutterings about her insane family. Angrily Alex chased after them leaving Max momentarily alone.

"You're certainly one of a kind Alex Fenton." Max said to the quiet room before following her.


	23. Chapter 23

A/N: We're finally entering the endgame of this fic, thanks to all of you for sticking around this long and through all the delays, I just wanted to make these last few chapters to be perfect. Thankyou all for reviewing.

As the ghost spider roared in a seemingly impossible way and spat poison at Alex, Aaron and Max, she found herself with no other choice than to turn ghost. As the cooling sensation of the rings slid over her body she slid into the now familiar feeling of not having to breathe of being able to fade in and out of the physical world. To be honest she liked being ghost, far more than she ever had being human, it felt more natural to her almost. Aaron gasped and looked over at Max who to Aarons surprise didn't actually seem that surprised at this event, he couldn't help but wonder if Alex had told him. The spider charged at the boys instead of Alex, with a growl she jumped through the air and tackled the two boys through the solid wall.

As the three teenagers crashed loudly in what turned out to be a science supplies cupboard ghost fangs pierced through the wall. The three of them flinched as they watched venom dribble down the wall and melt the bricks there.

"That could have been us…" Max breathed panicky as he opened the door and stumbled out shakily into the science classroom. "Listen Alex, if you're life's gonna be like this all the time then I think I need to take out some better health insurance." He laughed shakily.

"When did you tell him?" Aaron asked surprisingly casually.

"I-" Alex begun but was interrupted by a dark voice across the room.

"Yes Alex, please do tell us why you told an almost total stranger before you told your best friend." Josh asked coldly from his position by the blackboard. Alex was shocked at his sudden appearance, figuring that the jig was up she changed back into her human form.

"It wasn't like I wasn't going to tell you. Shouldn't you be more surprised that I'm a ghost?" Alex questioned as she walked through the aisle of desks towards him.

"Not really. I've known before you did." Josh shrugged and looked at her with steely eyes.

"What do you mean?" Alex asked completely thrown by this comment.

"Honestly with your father being who he is you were bound to end up this way." He sighed.

"What? You've lost me here." Alex blinked confused.

"You were bound to end up a freak, an abomination of nature. You were so beautiful before and I loved you too, and I would have had some remorse about doing this, but not now." Josh said advancing towards Alex. Alex felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she backed away scared.

"Josh… you're freaking me out." Alex breathed shakily. In the corner of the room both Aaron and Max moved defensively and protectively towards Alex.

"And so I should." He growled before slapping Alex backwards across the face, Alex yelped and tumbled to the ground, a singing smell hanging in the air.

"Ghost repelling gloves, you'd be surprised what these can do when you get close." Josh said in a detached and mechanical voice as he sat astride Alex's stomach and lowered his hands to her throat causing her to writhe in pain as if electricity was running through her body.

"Get OFF of her!" Aaron screamed rushing towards him.

"Unless you want her to die now then I'd advise against that." Josh commented casually, causing Aaron to skid to an indecisive halt.

"As for now, you belong to my master." Josh sighed before placing a small circular disk of metal that held some resemblance to a washer on Alex's chest. He stood up and in a puff of smoke Alex disappeared.

"Bring her back NOW you bastard." Aaron growled as he grabbed Josh by the throat.

"No chance, she has a role to play tonight. The world is going to end." Josh breathed. Aaron screamed with rage before hurling him across the room and was somewhat pleased to see him smash against the blackboard and crumple to a heap in the floor. He rounded on Max who looked scared and stunned.

"Did you know about this!" He demanded as he loomed threateningly above the smaller boy.

"What? No! I'm as shocked and confused as you! Don't hit me!" Max squeaked cowering in fear. Aaron breathed heavily before biting his lip and forcing himself to calm down, he lowered his fist.

"We need to find Alex." He stated simply.

"Sure, but… how?" Max asked still scared of upsetting Aaron who he was now aware could probably break every bone in his body.

"I… have no idea." He admitted.

Alex opened her eyes groggily, the room she was in was dark and poorly lit by computer monitors. She rubbed her sore throat and walked shakily over to one wall, her hand rested on a strange sensation. She moved her fingers uncertainly against the unusual texture of the wall, it squeaked a little.

"Feels like… photo paper…" She murmured, looking at the wall she could just make out the outlines of photographs, hundreds of them covering the wall. She pressed the light button on her watch and the small blue light illuminated thousands of photos of her mother. She gasped in horror, whoever's house this was owned pictures spanning her mother's entire life, her finger brushed against a photo of her mother at the end of high school. There were two other people in the picture with her, one was a boy she'd never seen in photos before and the other figure was scribbled out with black marker, she squinted at it trying to make out who it was.

Alex licked her thumb and rubbed against the marker, some of it rubbed off, enough at least for her to recognise who it was.

"Dad?" Alex said to herself in confusion. Who hated her father enough to scribble him out of photos, all the photos that he was in had his image scribbled or ripped out of them but yet still was obsessed about her mother enough to have thousands of photos of her? There was no-one like that she could think of. The light on her watch turned itself off after its twenty second automatic shut off.

"Hello Apocalypse." A voice from behind her said. Alex span around and flattened herself against the wall, a tall dark figure loomed over her.

"Who are you?" She squeaked.

"The person who's going to end your life." The voice replied before pressing a cloth against Alex's nose and mouth. She struggled violently at first but as the chloroform began to take effect her movements became sluggish until she finally became limp and fell backwards. The figure caught her and gently laid her back on the floor.

"But not yet, the time is not right." He said before disappearing off again into the darkness.


	24. Chapter 24

A/n: I've really enjoyed writing this fic so far, and I promise the next chapter is the big finale. Thankyou to all of you who have reviewed over the course of this fic and put up with me for all of this. It really means a lot. LOVE YOU ALL!

"**SHE'S WHAT!"** Danny screamed in disbelief as he paced across his living room.

"Missing." Dash repeated as his son rubbed his aching eardrums.

"What the HELL happened!" Danny demanded almost hysterical.

"I told you, Josh zapped her with some glove thing, he threatened to kill her, he made her vanish in a puff of smoke and through means that have ended up in me being suspended, he's now in the ER with several broken bones." Aaron replied steadily.

"We've got to find her." Danny said grimly.

"Am I the only one who thinks calling the police is a good idea?" Max asked wearily.

"Yes." Everyone else in the room answered.

"Yeah, hi, Amity Park Police? We've lost our resident half-ghost girl, can you help?" Aaron said mimicking the ridiculous phone call.

"Three-quarters." Danny corrected offhandedly before biting his lip in an effort to take back the stupid comment.

"I- what? No, half, the only way she'd be three quarters was… wait…" Aaron blinked, his mouth moved silently around the words 'phantom' and 'fenton'

"Oh, that... was painfully obvious." Aaron groaned.

"And yet, people are always surprised." Danny sighed regretting his foolish slip of the tongue.

"OH my GOD! You're!-" Max yelped at Danny.

"Yeah, we know. Real smooth Danny." Dash groaned.

"Sorry if the fact that my ONLY CHILD has been kidnapped is distracting me." Danny growled angrily.

"What I don't get is, who would take Alex? Who would have that much of a grudge against her to want to inflict that much pain on her and you? And Josh said he already knew who she was…" Aaron murmured.

"Danny…" Dash said gently as he rested his hand on Danny's shaking shoulders. "You need to think that… Tucker might have taken her."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Danny shuddered.

"Who's Tucker?" Aaron asked curiously.

"Nobody." Danny said bitterly before picking up the phone to call his parents and inform them of the news.

Alex groggily opened her eyes, she wasn't sure how long she'd been out but it was still dark in the room she was in. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dark, her head felt groggy and druggy and she was tied up. She wriggled her wrists but the cord tying them together was unmoving.

"Now don't even think of going ghost, or I'll have to shoot you in the knees. And I really don't want to have to do that." A voice said from across the room, the sound of a safety catch being taken off a gun filled Alex's veins with dread.

"And shockingly I'm not reassured." she muttered.

"You've got a smart mouth on you, just like your mother." The voice said softer this time.

"Who the hell are you? And why are you so obsessed with my mother? I've seen the photos." Alex demanded hoping to buy time.

"I'm the only man who ever loved your mother." The voice replied, the sound of the man getting up reached Alex's ears.

"That's a lie, my dad loves her. Always has and always will." Alex frowned.

"No, your dad is scum. Unworthy of even the slightest attention from her, he even went as far as corrupting your mother's flawless DNA and making you." The man said grabbing Alex's face and staring at her. With horror Alex saw that he only had one eye, the other was covered by an eye patch, his face was a mess of scars and he looked truly insane.

"What do you want with me?" She asked, her voice shaking.

"You, my dear, are my ticket out of this hell that I can existence and the universe. You're the end of the world, your sacrifice will cause the universe to be destroyed. You're a figure of legend, and tonight, in the centre of town on ancient ley lines, your life will end and the universe with it. Then my suffering and guilt can finally be over." He said straightening up.

"I… don't like the sound of that." Alex whimpered.

"You wouldn't." A second voice said from the side of the room, Alex frowned.

"Josh? Is that you? What's going on here?" Alex called.

"Bite me, you deserve your death for shunning me. Just like your mother shunning him." Josh growled walking past her and giving her a swift kick in the shins as he passed.

"At what point did the world go crazy?" Alex said to herself quietly.


	25. Chapter 25

Danny flew over Amity Park desperately searching for his only child, it was only as he flew over the outskirts of the town that the fenton phones crackled into life.

"Danny, I think I've found her. Centre of town, there's this giant stage here. Wait- Tucker… Tucker is here, with Alex. Oh god…" His mother's voice warned him. Without saying a word Danny changed his flight path and was above the centre of town in seconds he could already see Alex's shock of black hair from where he hovered in the air.

Tucker looked up and saw Danny looking back down on him, casually he drew a small green disk out of his coat pocket and threw it up towards Danny.

As the disk hit Danny's chest a wave of crippling pain ran through him, he felt his ability to fly diminishing and he crashed to the floor of the stage painfully. The force of his impact jolted Alex from her precarious standing position. Danny watched as she toppled over, her hands and ankles were bound with some glowing green metal. Seeing him he watched with pain as his daughter's face flared with anger, he was sure that he would be being shouted at were it not for the gag around her mouth.

"A nice invention yes? I thought it'd be good for getting your attention, after all I've always been so much better with technology than you. Now you're going to put this on, but not before changing back to your human self." Tucker smiled nastily as he tossed Danny a slightly similar looking green band.

Danny looked around at the large crowd that was now gathered, if he changed into Danny Fenton now then his secret identity would be out forever, no going back. But then again, his daughter's life was at stake. A nasty sound reminded him of this fact the sound of a safety being taken off of a gun, a real gun, not a ghost zapping gun, but your usual bullets kind of gun and to make it worse it was pointed at Alex. With a sigh he allowed the white rings to slide over his body, in Danny Phantom's place, sat Danny Fenton, looking somewhat pathetic and dishevelled in jeans and a t-shirt. He flinched as the crowd gasped and at the horrified look in Alex's eyes.

"Ah, there's nothing I like better than seeing you suffer. Now put it on, round you neck." Tucker ordered waving the gun at him, Danny obliged.

"Now you," Tucker began as he pulled off Alex's gag, as soon as her mouth was free she began a torrent of swearing and insults that Danny was surprised that she knew. Tucker narrowed his eyes and fired his gun at Alex's head, swearing some more she grabbed hold of what was left of her left earlobe, Danny joined in at this point in the verbal tirade against Tucker.

"Now, the next one will be between those glowing green eyes of yours. So change into your ghost form already." Tucker said simply and maliciously, Alex growled but allowed herself to slide into her ghost form.

"What good is this going to do you?" Alex demanded.

"And here I thought I'd made my plan clear enough earlier. But just so our captive audience here can keep up, I'm going to murder you and end the world.

"You bastard!" Danny snapped pulling Alex into his arms defensively.

"It'll end this pain I'm in. The guilt from nine years ago, it's all your fault too! If you hadn't been born then I wouldn't have had to try to kill you and Sam wouldn't have sacrificed herself for you, it was meant to be you not her!" Tucker snapped angrily Danny felt himself snap at this and lunged at Tucker who simply whistled. Appearing out of nowhere two three-headed creatures materialized.

Danny practically felt his heart stop, he heard Alex's scream from behind him and a look at her confirmed her curled up in a ball in terror. His eyes turned back to the monsters, they were huge salivating creatures being some resemblance to a cerebus, the three-headed dog that guarded the underworld in Greek mythology. They were huge, and a mixture of purple and green, with horrifying realization he recognised them from the terrifying picture that Alex had drawn of her mother's death when she was being evaluated in the psychiatry ward.

"You murdered her. You send these… things after her, you deprived me of the one person I loved and Alex of her mother." Danny breathed in quiet horror.

"It was an accident, I was trying to get them to get HER, Sam got in the way. And it's tormented me for years, that I killed the most perfect woman in the world." Tucker sobbed.

"I will not let you harm Alex." Danny said firmly as he stepped between Tucker and Alex.

"Yeah you don't get a say. If he makes a move, kill him." Tucker ordered his monsters as he transformed into his ghost self. It was a horrible sight to see, he looked more like a zombie than a ghost with horrible green skin and red eyes. Danny narrowed his eyes and did the same, or at least, he tried. As he felt the transition into ghost begin the band around his neck stopped him, and gave him a nasty shock to boot. Tucker grinned at this.

In one swift movement Danny felt himself knocked off the platform, but not surprisingly by Tucker, the blast came from Alex. He watched from his crumpled position on the floor as she stood up shakily and stared tucker straight in the eye.

"No one else is dying for me." She said sternly to Danny without taking her eyes off Tucker. "Killing me won't end the world, I've something to do with the re-shuffle of the system, but nothing to do with ending the world. That much I know." She said quietly.

"You're lying, you're lying to save your own skin." Tucker shouted angrily.

"I'm not. You're wrong, wherever you got this stupid idea from, you were wrong." Alex calmly explained as she stood her ground.

"LIAR!" Tucker screamed firing his gun.

Alex twitched and stumbled backwards, her hands rose to the left side of her chest, holding her hands out for inspection she saw that they were covered in blood. Alex fell to the floor after a second or two, almost as if reality had just caught up with her. Danny screamed and clambered back onto the stage with horror he saw that Alex's chest wasn't rising and falling as it should if she was breathing, after a second Alex's body faded back into her human form, her white shirt stained with blood. Danny pulled her up into his arms and held her tightly and sobbed uncontrollably as the blood of his only child soaked through his own shirt.

A/N: heh, don't worry this isn't the end. ya didn't all think that I'd let it end so easily did you? We've still got one last chapter to go, but you're all gonna have to wait till monday to get it as i have to move to my new university (yay) unfortunately one of the things i have to pack is the computer, meaning i can't update until monday as it'll be asleep in it's own little cardboard box. (aww) Until then, enjoy the suspence!


	26. Chapter 26 The End

Alex shakily looked at her hand, and then down to the wound at her chest. They were both white, not white per say, but more along the lines of glowing white. This, to Alex, seemed unusual, and with the strange fascination that those who have been fatally wounded but seem to be in no pain, she stared around at the world surrounding her. The faces of the people who had been watching these evens were an expression of shock and horror, her father's face as he ran slowly towards her was a mixture of panic, fear and despair. In fact, everyone was moving rather slowly, it seemed to be an age before her father's foot landed on the floor in front of him to take his next step.

Alex frowned at this and looked back to the glowing wound in her chest the glowing seemed to be getting bigger, consuming most of her torso now. A bright light flashed out from her chest and the world stopped moving, her father stopped mid-lunge, the crowd in mid gasp and Tucker in mid evil laugh.

Suddenly around her figures appeared, Alex recognised a few of them, love, the tooth fairy, death and many others, even in the background some of the lesser figures that she'd had to fight were there. A small cluster of Jinx's were hiding under a car, werewolves and vampires stood looking at her expectantly. Above her she felt the presence of ghosts, she looked up into a face that she knew belonged to Skulker.

"We're too late! Get her!" He yelled as he and the other ghosts hurtled towards Alex. Death frowned, quite how he did this remained unclear as he was a skeleton, but it was definitely a frown. He thumped his scythe on the floor menacingly and the ghosts stopped in their tracks, they all remembered death and they knew better than to cross him.

Ignoring this Alex watched with detached fascination as a glowing orb emerged from her chest and floated upwards, suddenly a strong vortex of suction began. She watched as the Jinx's were pulled screeching and yelping into it, a few other smaller creatures followed suit, the ghosts behind Alex looked on in terror. As suddenly as the suction started it stopped and a warm glow flooded out from it, Alex blinked at the harshness of the light and as it faded she saw that death appeared to be bigger, as did love.

"It's nice to see a little more faith in love these days." She murmured holding her hands up to her blind eyes. The tooth fairy on the other hand seemed to be smaller and angrier, she muttered something about pulling teeth before flying off irritated.

The ghosts floated in front of Alex and stared up at the glowing orb in awe.

"It's… a technical heaven… motherboards as far as the eye can see…" Technus murmured floating towards it.

"A safari of the afterlife… it shall be mine!" Skulker laughed in glee and sped upwards.

"A never ending rock concert, ROCK ON!" Ember yelped flying towards it.

"What's going on?" Alex asked confused.

"**Ghosts get trapped on earth when they have too much on their souls to move on without resolving it. Any soul that chooses to stay on earth becomes a ghost, but is then is often unable to move on afterwards. The re-shuffle is a way of letting the ghosts that want to leave to the afterlife. But not all of them want to."** Death explained in his deep and disconcerting voice. He looked over to Desiree who was cringing away from the glowing orb of light.

"Desiree…" Alex murmured, Desiree turned around and glared at her before flying off angrily.

"I feel sorry for her." Alex sighed.

"**Me too. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me though."** Death sighed.

"What?" Alex asked confused. Death pointed to the floor below her, what Alex saw shocked her to the bottom of her soul, she was standing in her own crumpled body on the floor, she stared at the blood on her chest and the anguish on her father's face as he cradled her body in his arms. She watched him silently scream to the heavens, her grandparents were suddenly on the stage shaking Alex and on the phone, in a second paramedics appeared from thin air.

"What's… what's happening, why are things moving so fast?" Alex yelped in panic as she watched the paramedics pull a sheet over her body with a sad expression on their faces, in the distance the police were dragging a screaming Tucker into a police car.

"**You're dead, you're outside of time." **Death explained as he gestured for Alex to follow him.

"I… NO! I can't die! I can't leave my Dad alone, I'm all he has!" Alex yelped backing away from Death.

"**I'm afraid you don't get a choice, and don't you want to see your mother?"** He questioned her.

"Well sure I do, but she's waited for me for years, she can wait until I'm older my Dad needs me now. He was broken when mum died, he'd fall apart if he lost me too." Alex shook her head firmly.

"**As I said, you don't get a choice."** Death informed her sternly.

"You owe me! Remember!" Alex shouted at him as she snapped the black whistle from her neck and waved it at him.

"**I can't just put your soul back into your body, I need to take something with me to the afterlife. If I went around granting life to everyone the system would freeze up, you know that." **Death sighed as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"So take the ghost half of me, that's something isn't it?" Alex pleaded desperately as she noticed the ambulance, the police car and her father had disappeared. Death seemed to consider this for a moment, he pulled an hourglass out of his robe and looked at it thoughtfully.

"**You won't live a LONG life if I do this." **Death warned.

"As long as it's longer than my father that doesn't matter." Alex shook her head, her mind resolved. Death paused and seemed to pull the hour glass in two, the sand in half of it turning black and merging into a second smaller hour glass. The one filled with black sand faded into nothingness and before Alex realised it Death was swinging his scythe through her, Alex shivered and felt a part of herself vanish. Death turned to face her.

"**You'll feel a slight kick in your chest, don't worry, it'll just be your heart starting up again . I'll be quick or you might wake up in the ground. You have fifteen years." **He said ominously before placing his hand on her chest and shoving her backwards. Alex felt herself hurtling through the air backwards with the world around her a blur.

-------

"Such a shame, I hate seeing the young ones in here." One young doctor sighed to his mentor.

"You and me both, I feel so sorry for the man in the hallway. He's her father. What's worse is it was only a few years ago since I had this girls mother on my table, that poor man's lost everything." The older doctor sighed.

"Ouch." The other one cringed with sympathy.

"I know, take her necklace off will you?" The older doctor instructed. The younger one reached down and touched the necklace around Alex's pale neck, he was surprised to see blood dribbling down from Alex's chest into the hollow of her collar bone where the pendant of her necklace rested.

"Sir…. She's… she's bleeding." The younger doctor quivered.

"What do you mean bleeding? People only bleed when they're alive." The older doctor snapped annoyed before turning around and gawping. Blood was seeping from the gunshot wound in the young girl's chest, the colour was even returning to her face.

"Holy-" He breathed before being cut off. Alex's eyes snapped open and she gasped a lungful of air, taking in her surroundings she screamed and fell off the table, landing running she skidded out of the door with only a white sheet covering herself. Her bare feet skidded on the floor as she rounded a corner and dashed off down another hallway.

Not too far away Danny Fenton was sitting in an uncomfortable chair hearing a speech he had never wanted to hear again.

"I'm sorry sir… we did all we could but… her injuries were too severe, we had the best doctors with her-" The doctor said sadly.

"Shut up." Danny growled. The doctor blinked at this, this wasn't how it was meant to go. "You doctors, you damn doctors, you don't care that your patients die. You don't care if it's my wife or my daughter, they're just another one that slipped through your fingers, so don't say sorry when you don't give a damn." Danny hissed angrily as he stood up and shoved the doctor backwards into a wall.

"Get out of my sight." He growled as his eyes glowed a malicious green. The doctor ran off terrified at this.

"Danny…" Jazz sighed gently.

"I don't want to hear it Jazz." Danny snapped as he sat back down. Suddenly his ears pricked up, there was shouting and screaming down the hallway and a sight that he had never expected to see greeted his eyes.

Alex skidded around another corner with doctors hot on her heels now, recognising her father she lunged at Danny and wrapped her arms around his chest and buried her face in his chest.

"Alex!" Danny cried happily, "you're alive! I thought I'd lost you!"

"You will if you don't let us take a look at her, she's bleeding everywhere." A doctor yelped pulling Alex back, and sure enough her chest was stained red with blood.

"I feel dizzy." Alex murmured before fainting.

When Alex opened her eyes a day or two later she felt in significantly more pain that she had been in before.

"Hey sweetie." Danny murmured looking up at her and brushing hair out of her face.

"Hey Daddy, I didn't want to leave you on your own." Alex mumbled rubbing her eyes.

"I've no idea how you did it, but thank you for staying with me. I'd be devastated without you." Danny smiled with tears in his eyes. Suddenly his eyes widened and he looked closer at Alex's face.

"What?" Alex asked staring back at him.

"Your eyes…" He breathed.

"What about them?" Alex panicked, Danny reached over to the beside and held up a mirror in front Alex's face. Alex stared into strange eyes that weren't her own, she looked at the purple irises before her with confusion before the realisation hit. Death had taken away all her ghostly powers, including her supernatural eyes.

"You look so much like your mum." Danny smiled hugging her.

"You were so lucky you know that right?" Danny asked her more seriously.

"I know, but I had a lucky charm I guess." Alex murmured rubbing her blue sun pendant happily.

* * *

Two months later Alex stood nervously in the ER department of the hospital with a Christmas card in her hands, she looked around warily before placing it on a table and leaving. Unseen to Alex, death reached out and pulled the Christmas card off of the table and read the inside.

"**She gave me a Christmas card… sweet kid." **Death remarked with a smile as he tucked it back into his robe and watched Alex rejoin her father as they left to walk back through the snow to Fenton Works happy and warm together as a family again.

The end! I hope all of you enjoyed this Fic, I'm sorry for the delay in posting this last chapter but it took the university ages to let me hook up my compy to their internet.


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